Benefits and risks of smart home technologies

Smart homes are a priority area of strategic energy planning and national policy. The market adoption of smart home technologies (SHTs) relies on prospective users perceiving clear benefits with acceptable levels of risk. This paper characterises the perceived benefits and risks of SHTs from multiple perspectives. A representative national survey of UK homeowners (n=1025) finds prospective users have positive perceptions of the multiple functionality of SHTs including energy management. Ceding autonomy and independence in the home for increased technological control are the main perceived risks. An additional survey of actual SHT users (n=42) participating in a smart home field trial identifies the key role of early adopters in lowering perceived SHT risks for the mass market. Content analysis of SHT marketing material (n=62) finds the SHT industry are insufficiently emphasising measures to build consumer confidence on data security and privacy. Policymakers can play an important role in mitigating perceived risks, and supporting the energy-management potential of a smart-home future. Policy measures to support SHT market development include design and operating standards, guidelines on data and privacy, quality control, and in situ research programmes. Policy experiences with domestic energy efficiency technologies and with national smart meter roll-outs offer useful precedents

Understanding User Perception and Intention to Use Smart Homes for Energy Efficiency: A Survey

The positive impact of Smart Homes on energy efficiency is heavily dependent on how consumers use the system after adoption. While the technical aspects of Smart Home systems and their potential to reduce energy usage is a focus of various studies, there is a limited consideration of behavioral psychology while designing systems for energy management. To investigate users' perception and intention to use Smart Homes to support energy efficiency, we design a research model by combining a theory of planned behavior and the norm activation model. We design a questionnaire and conduct a survey targeting current smart home users (over 350 responses). To analyze the survey results, we extend the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) by a random forest algorithm. The findings suggest that personal norms have the strongest influence on behavioral intention to use Smart Homes for energy efficiency, followed by the ascription of responsibility. Furthermore, the results support the effects of attitudes, subjective norms, awareness of consequences, as well as the moderating effect of past behavior on the relationship between personal norms and behavioral intentions

Are the next-generation households ready for the energy transition? A survey on their positioning and practice with energy management tools

In the last decades, significant effort has been put towards technological advancement in housing for energy transition. Massive retrofitting actions have been called for, and innovative technologies for smart energy management at home have been deployed. However, undesired energy trends in housing suggest that relevant factors have been neglected. Among these, increasing importance is now given to occupants' behaviour, and their capacity to interact with energy management devices available in dwellings. This study investigates what is the position of next-generation users on energy transition at home. Two years ago, the authors launched a survey to explore people's awareness of energy use practices, interaction with metering devices, and user motivation to change when informed. As a pilot survey, over 300 people from the academy were involved to see what was the position of a sample which was supposed to be informed more than the average, in Italy. The test yielded early outcomes on how people become more interested to change as they gain knowledge and are offered suggestions. Despite the expectations, the sample's level of awareness was low. This suggested that a more user-centred approach is needed for wide-scale progress. Especially results from the youngest were below prospects. The questionnaire was relaunched to examine if the pandemic, energy crisis and latest news on climate change have affected positions of the youngsters. A testing session involving university students was performed, and results have been compared with the previous. As a result, reflections on the energy use patterns of the next-generation households are provided

Smart home technology adoption in Denmark:Diffusion, social differences, and energy consumption

Smart home technology (SHT) is increasingly entering homes to provide services such as energy management, security, comfort, and convenience. However, research shows that adoption varies across social groups and that SHT might affect energy demand. Denmark is considered a frontrunner in the uptake of SHT and offers a unique opportunity to combine administrative household information with energy consumption data and survey responses on SHT uptake. This paper studies a representative sample of 1,468 Danish households to investigate SHT diffusion, social differences in SHT adoption, and correlations between SHT and energy consumption, divided into appliance use and heating. The results indicate that entertainment and home security are the most popular SHT services in Denmark and that SHT is more widespread among younger households, especially for entertainment and robotic help. In contrast, smart heating systems are more widespread among older households. Living in a detached house seems to increase the likelihood of having SHT, while the highest income group appears more likely to have security systems, and technical education seems associated with the adoption of SHT for heating management. Finally, smart security systems were associated with higher electricity consumption, and SHT for electricity management was associated with higher heating consumption and to a lesser extent higher electricity consumption, but there was no significant correlation between having smart heating control and heating consumption.</p

Changing demand: flexibility of energy practices in households with children (final report)

This report summarises the findings and recommendations from the ‘Changing Demand: Flexibility of energy practices in households with children’ research project funded by the Consumer Advocacy Panel. The project aimed to understand how households with children may be affected by electricity market reforms and demand management initiatives, such as cost-reflective pricing. The study involved 44 in-depth interviews, home tours and observations and a national survey with over 500 Australian households with children. Overview In households with children, many of the practices which use energy are coordinated and concentrated in the late afternoon and early evening on weekdays. Parents’ reliance on routine to manage the demands of family life limits the flexibility of energy use. With limited ability to shift practices to other times of the day, and priorities such as ‘doing what’s best for children’ and ‘using time efficiently’ taking precedence, households with children risk financial disadvantage under pricing strategies such as Time-of-Use (TOU) pricing. Financial insecurity is widespread in, but not limited to, low-income and sole parent households. Health concerns, thermally inefficient housing and appliances, housing tenure, safety and noise concerns, and widespread tariff confusion also restrict the capacity of households with children to manage energy use and costs. Many parents had little time, interest or trust to investigate tariff choice and available energy information. As such, increasing choice and complexity in electricity market offerings does not meet the needs of these households and TOU pricing is unlikely to achieve its aims with this household group. Family routines were more amenable to disruption on an occasional basis for non-financial reasons. For example, 85 per cent of survey respondents said they would reduce electricity use for a ‘peak alert’ in hot weather.&nbsp; Acting for the ‘common good’ appealed to most parents, for example to prevent an electricity outage and/or be part of a community effort. Household activities considered inflexible for a hypothetical TOU tariff, such as home cooling, television and computer activities and cooking, were considered. &nbsp;Recommendations from this study include reassessing the energy policy focus on price signals, tariff choice and information to address issues of household demand in Australia. Several alternatives are proposed such as peak alerts, and affordable access to public cooling during hot peak days.&nbsp

Integrated in- and out-of-home scheduling framework: A utility optimization-based approach

Existing activity-based modeling predominantly focus on out-of-home activities in order to understand transport demand. In this research, we extend the state of practice in activity-based modelling by determining both in- and out-of-home activities in a single scheduling framework. This approach has two main benefits and applications: Firstly, it can capture the trade-offs between in-home and out-of-home activities. Secondly, in-home time-use patterns can be used to model high resolution energy demand, which can contribute to demand side management. Our work builds on an existing optimisation framework, which treats individuals as maximising their total utility from completed activities and incorporates multiple scheduling decisions simultaneously. The framework has been extended to determine the choice of location for activities such as work, study, and leisure. The approach is tested on a set of detailed daily schedules extracted from the 2016-2020 UK Time Use Survey data. The results show that the model is able to generate peoples’ daily activity schedules based on their preferences and constraints

A socially intelligent approach to consumers' collective capabilities in smart grids

There is a pressing need to investigate consumers' social relations within energy systems particularly in the context of socially smart grids at the domestic level. However, no studies to date have categorised or explained how such social relations manifest and what role different consumers play in managing home energy demand. This work provides for the first time, a categorisation of household archetypes through the social relations that govern them. This study draws on mixed data including a large-scale ethno-visual survey and interviews conducted with energy consumers in Glasgow and Bristol, UK. The analysis forms part of a wider study which integrates social identity theory (SIT), practice theory and rhythm-analysis. We primarily focus on insights derived from SIT as an approach to identifying consumers' capabilities in smart energy systems and Home Energy Management (HEM) through a study of social relations. The findings reveal novel perspectives on how social identities shape HEM patterns and how the consequent socio-spatial and technical implications play a role in future demand reduction and the development of socially smart grids. The contribution of this study is two-fold; firstly, to demonstrate how prioritising social practices, identities, and rhythm-analysis can lead to novel interventions in smart grids and redefine the roles of the community, and neighbourhoods, and secondly to discuss the policy implications for planning future automated demand management via the acquisition of new socio-spatial insights into how diverse social identities and practices can foster just transitions and equitable energy futures in the UK and beyond.</p

Potential Repercussions of Offshore Wind Energy Development in the Northeast United States for the Atlantic Surfclam Survey and Population Assessment

The Atlantic surfclam Spisula solidissima fishery, which spans the U.S. Northeast continental shelf, is among the most exposed to offshore wind energy development impacts because of the overlap of fishing grounds with wind energy lease areas, the hydraulic dredges used by the fishing vessels, and the location of vessel home ports relative to the fishing grounds. The Atlantic surfclam federal assessment survey is conducted using a commercial fishing vessel in locations that overlap with the offshore wind energy development. Once wind energy turbines, cables, and scour protection are installed, survey operations within wind energy lease areas may be curtailed or eliminated due to limits on vessel access, safety requirements, and assessment survey protocols. The impact of excluding the federal assessment survey from wind energy lease areas was investigated using a spatially explicit, agent-based modeling framework that integrates Atlantic surfclam stock biology, fishery captain and fleet behavior, and federal assessment survey and management decisions. Simulations were designed to compare assessment estimates of spawning stock biomass (SSB) and fishing mortality (F) for scenarios that excluded the survey from (1) wind energy lease areas or (2) wind energy lease areas and potential wind energy lease areas (“call areas”). For the most restricted scenario, the simulated stock assessment estimated 17% lower SSB relative to an unrestricted survey, placing it below the SSB target. The simulated F increased by 7% but was still less than the accepted F threshold. Changes in biological reference points were driven by the inability to access the Atlantic surfclam biomass within the wind energy lease areas. Deviations in reference points reflected the proportion of the population excluded from the survey. Excluding the Atlantic surfclam assessment surveys from the regions designated for offshore wind development can alter long-term stock assessments by increasing uncertainty in metrics that are used to set fishing quotas