designcamp2011_electricity-consumption-and-everyday-practices

DesignCamp2011: Power Days – 5-14 October 2011

Electricity Consumption and Everyday Practices in Danish Households Toke Haunstrup Christensen Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University

Outline of presentation • Overview: Household electricity consumption – and the importance of household size • Electricity consumption in a practice theoretical perspective • ICT and electricity consumption (case 1) • Heat pumps and electricity consumption (case 2) • Concluding remarks – and a few comments on the challenges of making electricity consumption visible Ø 15 minutes for discussion at the end of the presentation

Danish household electricity consumption – before and today

Electricity consumption 1946-2006 Total household electricity consumption distributed by final uses 1946-2006

10000

GWh

8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 Lighting

Cooking

Laundry

Cooling

Heating

TV, music and computer

Miscellaneous

Røpke et al. (2010): Information and communication technologies – A new round of household electrification”.

Energy Policy (2010) 1764-1773.

Reasons behind increase Household stock of electrical appliances (in thousands)

Energy Statistics 2008, Danish Energy Agency

Household electricity consumption Danish household electricity consumption distributed by final uses (2006)

TV, music and computer; 20%

Lighting; 11% Cooking; 8%

Miscellaneous; 10%

Laundry; 15%

Heating; 18% Cooling; 18%

Variation – and household size Electricity consumption Elforbrug (kWh) (kWh)

5% with highest consumption

14000

5% with lowest consumption

The median

12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1

2

3

4

5

6

Number persons in household Antal of personer i hus s tanden De 5 % laves te forbrug Median De 95 % laves te forbrug

De 25 % laves te forbrug De 75 % laves te forbrug

7

Electricity consumption in a practice theoretical perspective

Energy consumption and everyday life How to understand the relation between energy consumption and everyday life?

Consumption is woven into everyday life, the activities that are decisive for the quality of life and the images of the good life, so consumption is difficult to isolate as something that can be reduced without diminishing quality of life.

Inge Røpke (1999)

Social practices • Electricity consumption comes in as an aspect of everyday practices • Social practices = people’s “sayings and doings” A ‘practice’ ... is a routinized type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge.

A. Reckwitz (2002): Toward a Theory of Social Practices

Examples of everyday practices

Elements constituting practices Technology/ infrastructure

Know-how and embodied habits

Engagement / teleoaffective structures

Comfort practices

Institutionalised knowledge and explicit rules

Elements related to comfort practices Examples of elements Know-how and embodied habits

Technology/infrastructure

Engagement/ teleoaffective structures

Institutionalized knowledge and explicit rules

- Habits of turning heat up/down - Habits of airing - Bodily activities – and the temporality of these

- Heating system - Thermal standard of house - Thermostats - Clothes

- Understandings of cosiness (e.g. the Danish “hygge”) - Heat as associated with a welcoming/ friendly environment (e.g. turning up the heat before guests arrives)

- Public campaigns on energy saving (e.g. max 20 degrees C) - Heating season (e.g. rented flats)

Each of these elements play a role for the performance of comfort practices – and, thus, for the energy consumption related to “doing a comfortable home”

Case: ICT and electricity consumption

Increase in ICT electricity consumption 10000

GWh

8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 Lighting

Cooking

Laundry

Cooling

Heating

TV, music and computer

Miscellaneous

An explosion of new ICT

ICT energy consumption • Direct electricity consumption in the home • App. 25% of total household electricity consumption

• Indirect energy consumption – the “hidden story” of ICT • Production and disposal of equipment • Running the ICT-infrastructure (e.g. increased data transmission → increase energy cons. for the Internet) • Of the total energy consumption during the life cycle of a computer: • App. 40% related to use at home • App. 40% related to manufacture, transport and disposal of hardware • App. 20% related to the internet and the ICT infrastructure

Explanations of rise in use of ICT • Pervasive integration of ICT in everyday practices • ICT is integrated into more and more everyday practices

• Diversification of existing practices by integrating new ICTs • E.g. communication through a variety of different media and services

• As a result of this: More technologies used more frequently and for longer periods of time = increase in electricity consumption.

Pervasive integration in practices • ICTs support the universal activities of communication and search for information • Work and education • Teleworking, distance learning, video conferences etc.

• Reproductive work • Shopping, banking, public services, health, the intelligent (smart) home, security, cooking, do-it-yourself etc.

• Leisure • Social communication, entertainment, games, hobbies, sex etc.

• Civil society • Organizations, politics etc.

ICT and sports (example) Many have running computers Measuring distance and gradients of the route, and monitoring the speed and pulse of the user Mikkel (interviewee) uses a net-based route map to plan new routes and measure the length

ICT and hobbies (example) Lise (interviewee) rides her horse every day and will soon buy one more horse Lise and her husband are renovating the stable She plans for webcameras in stable and fold and a website to access the recordings over the net Then she can monitor the horses without going out at night And she can watch them at her workplace and decide to go home early in case of bad weather

ICT and home control (example)

John (interviewee) has a copy of his home in Second Life.

The avatar can turn the light off and on in the real home.

Diversification of practices Example: Staying in touch with friends and relatives • • • • • • • • •

Physical meetings (co-presence), phone calls, letters Mobile phone; text and picture messages Skype / IP telephony; video-phoning Email Instant messaging (Messenger, Google Talk, Facebook’s instant messaging service) Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn… Blogs; travel blogs Web-based photo albums Online games

Case: Air-to-air heat pumps and electricity consumption

Air-to-air heat pumps • Used to heat indoor space (and can also be used for airconditioning in the summer) • Outdoor unit and indoor unit • If heat pump substitutes direct electric heating: Should in “theory” save up to 2/3 of the electricity consumption • Increasingly promoted in Denmark (75,000 installed in 2009)

Electricity savings • Results from a Danish study of air-to-air heat pumps in dwellings and summerhouses • Dwellings: 14-18% electricity saving on average • Summerhouses: No significant reduction in electricity consumption!

• In theory, the electricity consumption should be reduced with up to 60%... Explanations?

Summer houses (example) • Thorough changes in heating and comfort practices in summer houses • • • •

Increased indoor temperature Longer heating season Less firewood consumption Widespread use of heat pumps to keep the house heated in the winter

• Potential energy savings partly “outbalanced” by increased standards (the “rebound effect”)

Summer houses (example) • Interviewees all kept their summer houses heated to app. 16 ºC the entire winter • Widespread idea that it is “best for the house” if it is heated all winter (prevent mold/moisture problems) • Part of the original motivation for purchasing the heat pump • Nice to arrive to a heated summer house in the winter • Convenient not to have to frost-proof the house

Tonny & Edith About the couple’s routines before they began to heat the summer house during the winter: Tonny: And we had to drive down here [to the summerhouse] the day before and take all our bedclothes and everything – take it back home [to their home] and put it in the tumble dryer. Because otherwise she [Edith] would get nettle rash.

Edith: I’m allergic to house dust mites...

New technology – new practices • Potential savings not realized due to changes in comfort and heating practices • The purchase of the heat pump as an integrated part of a decision to improve comfort and convenience – not only to save energy/money • Co-evolution: Technological changes affects daily routines – and vice versa

Concluding remarks – and the challenge of making electricity use visible

Electricity and everyday life • Consumption of electricity comes with the use of technologies which are integrated and inseparable elements of ordinary everyday practices (cooking, entertainment, heating, hobbies etc.).

• Always understand electricity consumption in its context

• With the integration of new technology in everyday life follows changes in electricity consumption (and often in the wrong direction) • General tendency of increased comfort and living standard

• How to make electricity visible?

Feedback • Danish studies indicate limited potential • Some international studies indicate a potential of up to 10 % reduction in household electricity use

Feedback “There is an expectation that AMI [Advanced Metering Infrastructure = “smart meters” / thc] will lead to reductions in both the demand and the cost to serve customers through improved communication, but little evidence exists to show overall demand reduction” Sarah Darby (2010)

Most successful examples seem to combine frequently and long-term information with an appliance-specific breakdown presented in a clear and appealing way by use of interactive tools (Corinna Fischer, 2008)

How to make electricity visible?

• The main challenge is to make the consumers aware of the “energy component” of their daily practices...

• ... and at the same time provide them the opportunities for changing daily practices in a less energy-consuming direction (if the aim is to reduce electricity consumption) • Perhaps less focus on visualizing energy (electricity) consumption – but more on creating designs that give people a friendly “push” in order to change their practices in the right direction? Or do both?

• And what about the indirect energy consumption?

Reflecting on the non-reflective habits

Based on Richard Wilk (2009): The Edge of Agency. In E. Shove et al. (eds.): Time, Consumption and Everyday Life.

Thank you for your attention!

thc@sbi.dk