Devices measure heating fuel use in Kotzebue homes

December 11, 2019

University Relations

Alana Vilagi installs a PuMA device in a Kotzebue home. Photo by Dominique Pride.
Alana Vilagi installs a PuMA device in a Kotzebue home. Photo by Dominique Pride.


In an effort to create household baseline heating data for Alaska communities, Research Assistant Professor Dominique Pride and graduate research assistant Alana Vilagi installed fuel pump monitoring apparatuses in nine households in Kotzebue Nov. 16-18. Pride and Vilagi are with UAF's Alaska Center for Energy and Power.

The PuMAs will remain in place through spring 2021, collecting the first residential heating fuel consumption data for an Arctic community in Alaska. The data will be used to compare actual fuel consumption to engineering estimates.

This research is funded by the National Science Foundation under an Office of Polar Programs award titled “Collaborative Research: Using Field Experiments to Understand Household Barriers to Energy Efficiency in Alaska.”

PuMA meters are also currently installed in households in Tanana and Fairbanks. For information on this project, contact Dominique Pride at djpride@alaska.edu.