Dr Watson started his academic journey by trying to understand what the national electricity demand would be, if most homes had a heat pump. At the time, some people were arguing that a widespread use of heat pumps would result in enormous spikes in electricity demand, and would therefore be a bad idea. He found that the peak electricity demand from heat pumps, while still substantial, would be significantly lower than had been suggested by others. Since then, he has looked at the prevalsence of summertime overheating in British homes through the use of monitored temperature data, as well as some possible solutions.

Dr Watson has developed a model of domestic energy demand and has been involved in the development of the government’s new Home Energy Model. He has also used monitored boiler data to understand the potential for hybrid heat pumps and for using heat pumps with existing radiators.