The rhythm of life is a powerful beat: demand response opportunities for time-shifting domestic electricity practices

The 2008 Climate Change Act set legally-binding carbon reduction targets. Demand side management (DSM) includes energy use reduction and peak shaving and offers significant potential to reduce the amount of carbon used by the electricity grid. The demand side management (DSM) schemes that have tried to meet this challenge have been dominated by engineering-based approaches and so favour tools like automation (which aims to make shifting invisible) and pricing (which requires customer response) to shift demand. These approaches tend to focus on the tools for change and take little account of people and energy-use practices. This thesis argues that these approaches are limited and therefore unlikely to produce the level of response that will be needed in future. The thesis therefore investigates the potential for time-shifting domestic energy demand but takes a different angle by trying to understand how people use energy in their daily lives, whether this use can be shifted and some of the implications of shifting it. The centrepiece of the work is an empirical study of eleven households energy-use practices. The interdisciplinary methodology involved in-house observations, interviews, photographs, metered energy data and disruptive interventions. The data was collected in two phases. Initially, a twenty-four hour observation was carried out in each household to find out how energy was implicated in everyday practices. Next, a series of three challenges were carried out, aimed at assessing the implications of disrupting practices by time-shifting food preparation, laundry and work/ leisure. A practice theory approach is used to shift the focus of attention from appliances, tools for change, behaviour or even people, to practices. The central finding of this work is that practices were flexible. This finding is nuanced, in the light of the empirical research, by an extended discussion on the nature of practices; in particular, the relationship between practices and agency and the temporal-spatial locatedness of practices. The findings demonstrate that, in this study at least, expanding the range of demand response options was possible. The research suggests numerous possibilities for extending the potential of practices to shift in time and space, shift the energy used in practices or substitute practices for other non-energy-using practices, though there are no simple technological or behavioural fixes . More profoundly, however, the thesis concludes that infrastructures of provision , such as the electricity grid and the companies that run it, underpin and facilitate energy-use practices irrespective of the time of day and year. In this context technology-led demand response schemes may ultimately contribute to the problem they purport to solve. A more fundamental interrogation of demand and the infrastructures that serve it is therefore necessary and is almost entirely absent from the demand response debate

How can energy demand advance racial justice? The case of the UK

This paper shares findings from research at the intersection of energy demand and racialisation — an under-researched topic in Europe. We sought to understand the reasons for this gap, and identify potential approaches to address it in the UK, through a scoping literature review, semi-structured interviews and a stakeholder workshop. The scoping literature review identified 36 publications that focused on energy and racialisation. The majority of these were about the United States, used quantitative methodologies, and performed analysis at the city and national-level, especially in the residential sector, and also focused on energy demand. Participants for semi-structured interviews (n=27) and one project workshops (n=45) were identified among energy demand and social justice researchers and practitioners. Interviews covered understanding the current situation (at an experiential and structural level), aspiration (through a pluralistic definition of racial justice), and learning from other agendas like gender and energy. The workshop was used to obtain feedback on emerging insights. Thematic analysis revealed the following areas for further investigation—Energy services where people demonstrably experience racialisation, namely, built environment, transport, health, and food; Processes through which racialised people are disproportionately impacted by energy system governance, especially with respect to energy demand practices, low-carbon technologies, energy advice services; and Methods to strengthen the evidence’s explanatory power in a nonextractive manner. The paper concludes with a call to further research on the diverse energy practices and needs of racialised people, thereby challenging assumptions around an archetypal low-carbon energy consumer and its implications for energy justice

Energy use in the context of behaviour and practice: the interdisciplinary challenge in modelling flexible electricity demand

Moving towards a low carbon energy system in line with energy policy requires that we more fully appreciate the relationship between people and the technology they use. Specifically, in a future electricity grid dominated by renewables we may need to consider our response to an intermittent electricity supply. This has significant implications for energy practices. Traditionally engineering approaches have focused on technology, whilst sociological approaches have people as their main object of study. A practice based approach has the relationship between the two at its core and so there is the potential to combine their methodologies in new interdisciplinary ways. This paper proposes that analysing household practices can better represent domestic energy consumption in context and that this may therefore be used to build more representative models

Data synergy in times of crisis

We face multiple, interlinking crises, all of which require the collection and sharing of quality data to understand them. Sharing data is good practice for responsible research and often a funder requirement. However, many projects still fail to deliver on the FAIR data sharing principles (that data be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Whether qualitative or quantitative, high quality data collection, management and analysis is a crucial foundation for excellent, socially relevant research, particularly when it is interdisciplinary and the assumptions underpinning single disciplinary ontologies and methodologies might be contested. Energy research produces interesting, specific data challenges: 1) the prevalence of large-scale consortia means many institutions are involved; 2) the multi-disciplinary approach favoured in such consortia results in a wide variety of domain standards and expectations; 3) as an applied area of study, energy researchers often collaborate with commercial partners, who may restrict data sharing. Building on the authors’ experiences of data management in RealValue, an H2020 project, and two UK-based consortia, the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) and UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), plus learning from a recent expert workshop of research system stakeholders, this paper will explore the concept of ‘data synergy’. Data synergy, a term coined during RealValue, describes data from multiple stakeholders, sources or disciplines that, when combined, are more valuable than any of the sources on their own. It has four dimensions – resources/ time, people, methods/ metrics, and technology – and considers data collection, sharing and management a socio-technical process that balances these dimensions. The aim of this paper is to elucidate a set of principles and processes that will guide the international energy community moving forward, ensuring we are able to meet future challenges quickly based on FAIR data, whatever the project focus or methodology

Can practice make perfect (models)? Incorporating social practice theory into quantitative energy demand models

Demand response could be increasingly valuable in coping with the intermittency of a future renewables-dominated electricity grid. There is a growing body of work being done specifically on understanding demand response from a people and practices point of view. This paper will start by introducing some of the recent research in this area and will present social practice theory (SPT) as a useful way of looking at the flexibility and timing of energy-use practices. However, for the insights gained from SPT to have value for the electricity supply industry it is important to be able to represent this flexibility in quantitative energy demand models. This requires an interdisciplinary conversation that allows SPT and modelling concepts to be mapped together. This paper presents an initial step in trying to achieve this. Drawing on empirical data from a recent SPT study into flexible energy-use practices, it will experiment with modelling flexible demand in such a way as to take account of the complexity of practices; not just their ‘stuff’ but also some of the images and skills involved in their competent performance. There are several reasons this is a useful enterprise. It encourages interdisciplinary insights which are valuable both to social practice theory and to energy demand modelling, it highlights new ways of intervening in flexible demand and it establishes a research agenda for social practice theorists and modellers which will eventually result in a set of requirements that can be used to build an energy demand model based on practice theory. This area of research is in its early stages and so the conceptual mapping is necessarily speculative but, hopefully, also stimulating

The Role of Domestic Heat Pumps in Providing Flexibility to the UK Electricity System

Widespread adoption of residential heat pumps is predicted to create challenges for national and local electricity systems. Flexible operation of heat pumps could help smooth peak demand and better utilise renewables. Achieving these benefits involves many stakeholders from the heat pump and electricity sectors with different perspectives and expectations. This work brought together 52 experts from different parts of the UK system to discuss and debate the role of heat pump flexibility in a decarbonised electricity system in 2035. A co-production research model was adopted, designed to integrate diverse forms of knowledge and perspectives in the co-production of knowledge on heat pump flexibility. A series of participatory activities were undertaken including a one-day workshop. Elements of a common vision emerged, such as the anticipated widespread flexible operation of heat pumps as the cheapest way of running a heat pump and the likelihood of a highly automated and remote-controlled manner of operation. Disagreements and unknowns also emerged. This work aims to support stakeholders in planning for the social, technical and economic aspects of flexible heat pump operation in their own organisations

A systematic review and critical appraisal of quality indicators to assess optimal palliative care for older people with dementia

© The Author(s) 2019Background: A challenge for commissioners and providers of end-of-life care in dementia is to translate recommendations for good or effective care into quality indicators that inform service development and evaluation. Aim: To identify and critically evaluate quality indicators for end-of-life care in dementia. Results: We found 8657 references, after de-duplication. In all, 19 publications describing 10 new and 3 updated sets of indicators were included in this review. Ultimately, 246 individual indicators were identified as being relevant to dementia end-of-life care and mapped against EAPC guidelines. Conclusions: We systematically derived and assessed a set of quality indicators using a robust framework that provides clear definitions of aspects of palliative care, which are dementia specific, and strengthens the theoretical underpinning of new complex interventions in end-of-life care in dementia.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The microstructural development of type 321 Austenitic Stainless Steel with long term ageing

Austenitic stainless steel is important in the power generation industry where it is expected to be in service at high temperatures for extended periods of time. Work carried out on the microstructural development of two 321 stainless steel samples has shown that there are complex phase changes that can take place in this alloy. Although the alloy is expected to be fully austenitic at room temperature there is a fraction of ferrite present in the as-received materials. High temperature XRD has shown that this ferrite phase can be dissolved at temperatures between 800 and 900°C but precipitates on cooling at temperatures below 200°C. Due to the low temperature of formation, similarities in chemistry and orientations relationships indicate that the ferrite is forming in a displacive manor from the austenite grains. Thermal ageing at 750°C has been carried out up to times of 15,000 hours and the microstructural changes quantified. The fraction of sigma phase and ferrite increases with ageing time with a corresponding decrease in austenite fraction. This change in the microstructure is postulated to be caused by the changes in the matrix chemistry due to the formation of second phases particles

Evolution of sigma phase in 321 grade austenitic stainless steel parent and weld metal with duplex microstructure

Samples of 321 stainless steel from both the parent and welded section of a thin section tube were subjected to accelerated ageing to simulate long term service conditions in an advanced gas cooled reactor (AGR) power plant. The initial condition of the parent metal showed a duplex microstructure with approximately 50% ferrite and 50% austenite. The weld metal showed three distinct matrix phases, austenite, delta ferrite and ferrite. This result was surprising as the initial condition of the parent metal was expected to be fully austenitic and austenite+delta ferrite in the weldment. The intermetallic sigma phase formed during the accelerated ageing was imaged using ion beam induced secondary electrons then measured using computer software which gave the particle size as a function of aging time. The measurements were used to plot particle size, area coverage against aging time and minimum particle spacing for the parent metal. During aging the amount of ferrite in the parent metal actually increased from ∼50 to ∼80% after aging for 15 000 h at 750°C. Sigma has been observed to form on the austenite/ferrite boundaries as they may provide new nucleation sites for sigma phase precipitation. This has resulted in small sigma phase particles forming on the austenite/ferrite boundaries in the parent metal as the ferrite transforms from the austenite