Exploring the Role of Control – Smart Meter Acceptance of Residential Consumers

The increasing diffusion of renewable energies which underlie significant daily and seasonal fluctuations increases grid operations’ complexity. For the effective use of renewable energies, innovative information and communication technologies (ICT) and concepts are necessary to efficiently balance power generation and consumption. An ICT-based innovation in this context is the smart metering technology allowing bidirectional transfer of information between energy systems’ components. Using a context-specific extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) of Davis (1989), our study investigates smart meters’ acceptance based on the attitude toward use and the salient beliefs perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and subjective control. Results support the theorized relationships indicating that the attitude toward use fully mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and subjective control on intention to use. In the conclusion a detailed discussion of the study’s findings is provided and the implications for research, practice, and policy are highlighted

Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed

Scenarios for the development of smart grids in the UK: synthesis report

‘Smart grid’ is a catch-all term for the smart options that could transform the ways society produces, delivers and consumes energy, and potentially the way we conceive of these services. Delivering energy more intelligently will be fundamental to decarbonising the UK electricity system at least possible cost, while maintaining security and reliability of supply. Smarter energy delivery is expected to allow the integration of more low carbon technologies and to be much more cost effective than traditional methods, as well as contributing to economic growth by opening up new business and innovation opportunities. Innovating new options for energy system management could lead to cost savings of up to £10bn, even if low carbon technologies do not emerge. This saving will be much higher if UK renewable energy targets are achieved. Building on extensive expert feedback and input, this report describes four smart grid scenarios which consider how the UK’s electricity system might develop to 2050. The scenarios outline how political decisions, as well as those made in regulation, finance, technology, consumer and social behaviour, market design or response, might affect the decisions of other actors and limit or allow the availability of future options. The project aims to explore the degree of uncertainty around the current direction of the electricity system and the complex interactions of a whole host of factors that may lead to any one of a wide range of outcomes. Our addition to this discussion will help decision makers to understand the implications of possible actions and better plan for the future, whilst recognising that it may take any one of a number of forms

Prosumer behaviour in emerging electricity systems

This dissertation investigates the interface between technology and society in the emerging electricity systems and in particular the role of the energy prosumer in the energy transition. It contributes to the understanding of the role of consumers in emerging electricity systems within the current EU energy policy context where consumer active participation is regarded as "a prerequisite for managing the energy transition successfully and in a cost-effective way". Emerging energy systems are characterized by a high level of complexity, especially for what concerns the behaviour of social actors. Social actors interact through physical and social networks by sharing information and learning from one another through social interactions. These interactions determine self-organization and emergent behaviours in energy consumption patterns and practices. I argue that the best suited tool to study emergent behaviours in energy consumption patterns and practices, and to investigate how consumers' preferences and choices lead to macro behaviours is agent based modelling. To build a sound characterization of the energy prosumer, I review the current social psychology and behavioural theories on sustainable consumption and collect evidence from EU energy prosumers surveys, studies and demand side management pilot projects. I employ these findings to inform the development of an agent based model of the electricity prosumer, Subjective Individual Model of Prosumer – SIMP, and its extended version, SIMP-N, that includes the modelling of the social network. I apply SIMP and SIMP-N models to study the emergence in consumer systems and how values and beliefs at consumer level (as defined by social psychology and behavioural theories and informed by empirical evidence) and social dynamics lead to macro behaviours. More specifically, I explore the diffusion of smart grid technologies enabled services among a population of interacting prosumers and evaluate the impact of such diffusion on individual and societal performance indicators under different policy scenarios and contextual factors. The analysis of the simulation results provides interesting insights on how different psychological characteristics, social dynamics and technological elements can strongly influence consumers' choices and overall system performance. I conclude proposing a framework for an integrated approach to modelling emerging energy systems and markets that extend the SIMP model to also include markets, distribution system operator and the electricity network

Competition and norms: a self-defeating combination?

This paper investigates the effects of information feedback mechanisms on electricity and heating usage at a student hall of residence in London. In a randomised control trial, we formulate different treatments such as feedback information and norms, as well as prize competition among subjects. We show that information and norms lead to a sharp – more than 20% - reduction in overall energy consumption. Because participants do not pay for their energy consumption this response cannot be driven by cost saving incentives. Interestingly, when combining feedback and norms with a prize competition for achieving low energy consumption, the reduction effect – while present initially – disappears in the long run. This could suggest that external rewards reduce and even destroy intrinsic motivation to change behaviour

Investigation into the impact of wind power generation on demand side management (DSM) practices

The construction of a number of wind farms in South Africa will lay the foundation for the country to embrace the generation of greener energy into the National Grid. Despite the benefits derived from introducing wind power generation into the grid, this source encompasses adverse effects which need to be managed. These adverse effects include the intermittency and lack of predictability of wind. In power systems with a high penetration of wind energy, these effects can severely affect the power system’s security and reliability in the event of significant rapid ramp rates. Recently, many utilities around the world have been exploring the use of Demand Side Management (DSM) and Demand Response (DR) initiatives and programmes to support and manage the intermittency of wind power generation. This report outlines the programmes and benefits of DSM/DR and provides a critical analysis of the challenges facing South Africa with implementing these initiatives. Introducing these programmes necessitates the employment of a number of Smart Grid technologies including Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), next generation telecommunications technologies, smart meters, enterprise system integration and dynamic pricing. These tools and techniques are discussed and their challenges described within the context of South Africa’s current state of the power system. The current practices for DSM/DR in South Africa have been evaluated in this report. Despite, the success of many DSM/DR initiatives in the commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors, it is found that much work is still required in the residential sectors as the current DSM initiatives are not adequate for managing wind power generation. A detailed analysis and recommendations for South Africa’s DR program is then presented based on industry best practices and experiences from other utilities who are currently exploring DSM/DR in the residential sector using Smart Grid technologies

Energy system optimisation and smart technologies - a social sciences and humanities annotated bibliography

The challenge: * Systems perspectives on energy involve a holistic view on balancing demand and supply; system optimisation can support security of supply, affordability, sustainability and profitability. * A central, and relatively recent, element of system optimisation is the move towards smart grids, and smart technologies, which concern interconnection of system elements usually through the internet. As well as increasing the resilience of the network, it is hoped this will help “citizens take ownership of the energy transition [and] benefit from new technologies”. * ‘Smartification’ of the energy system introduces a range of new societal conditions and consequences. The aim: * European energy policy has so far mainly relied on research from Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities (energy-SSH) have been significantly underrepresented. The aim of this bibliography is to give policymakers a selected yet broad impression of the SSH research community focusing on ‘energy system optimisation and smart technologies’. Wherever possible, policy deductions or research and innovation recommendations are mentioned. Coverage: * Disciplines covered in this bibliography are broadly representative of the current SSH research community in the area, with a slight bias towards Economics, Sociology and Science & Technology Studies. Nevertheless, robust accounts from Psychology, Politics, Ethnography, Development, Environmental Social Science, Geography, Planning, Law, History and other fields are also included. * Geographically, research presented is primarily from Western and Northern Europe, but with diversity across these regions, and inclusion of some Eastern European and non-European contributions. * Techno-economic accounts are very highly represented in the field of energy system optimisation and smart technologies, a fact highlighted by researchers themselves. Much of this research concentrates on financial cost/benefit of smart grid and technical design, while approaches focusing on social practices or user-centric design are increasing but still underrepresented. The latter were deliberately given higher visibility in this bibliography. Key findings: * Numerous papers presented here focus on how questions of smart technology diffusion, innovation, and adoption might be shifted away from monetary incentives or cost/benefit analyses of technologies. * A unifying message across many topics and disciplines - from energy justice or socio-technical scenarios, to Economics or Ethnography - is that co-operation between techno-economic and SSH approaches needs more attention and is crucial for successful smart grid realisation. * Another important debate for SSH researchers is the deconstruction of overly optimistic visions of smart societies. Many authors urge caution in considering the (financial and social) costs and benefits of smart technologies for all of society, including issues of privacy intrusion. There are calls for more research on both policy initiatives, preferably targeting the community level, and clear communication strategies which fully consider these aspects

Enabling Micro-level Demand-Side Grid Flexiblity in Resource Constrained Environments

The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presents various resource and operational electric grid challenges. Micro-level (household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be a cost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solar energy, but literature and field deployments exploring the necessary information and communication technologies (ICTs) are scant. This paper presents an exploratory framework for enabling information driven grid flexibility through the Internet of Things (IoT), and a proof-of-concept wireless sensor gateway (FlexBox) to collect the necessary parameters for adequately monitoring and actuating the micro-level demand-side. In the summer of 2015, thirty sensor gateways were deployed in the city of Managua (Nicaragua) to develop a baseline for a near future small-scale demand response pilot implementation. FlexBox field data has begun shedding light on relationships between ambient temperature and load energy consumption, load and building envelope energy efficiency challenges, latency communication network challenges, and opportunities to engage existing demand-side user behavioral patterns. Information driven grid flexibility strategies present great opportunity to develop new technologies, system architectures, and implementation approaches that can easily scale across regions, incomes, and levels of development

An Empirical Assessment of Energy Management Information System Success Using Structural Equation Modeling

The Energy Industry utilizes Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) smart meters to monitor utility consumers’ energy consumption, communicate energy consumption information to consumers, and to collect a plethora of energy consumption data about consumer usage. The EMIS energy consumption information is typically presented to utility consumers via a smart meter web portal. The hope is that EMIS web portal use will aid utility consumers in managing their energy consumption by helping them make effective decisions regarding their energy usage. However, little research exists that evaluates the effectiveness or success of an EMIS smart meter web portal from a utility consumer perspective. The research goal was to measure EMIS smart meter web portal success based on the DeLone and McLean Information Success Model. The objective of the study was to investigate the success constructs system quality, information quality, service quality, use, and user satisfaction, and determine their contribution to EMIS success, which was measured as net benefits. The research model used in this study employed Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on Partial Least Squares (PLS) to determine the validity and reliability of the measurement model and to evaluate the hypothetical relationships in the structural model. The significant validity and reliability measures obtained in this study indicate that the DeLone and McLean Information Success Model (2003) has the potential for use in future EMIS studies. The determinants responsible for explaining the variance in net benefits were EMIS use and user satisfaction. Based on the research findings, several implications and future research are stated and proposed