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Outline

Title
Abstract
Introduction and Motivation
Identifying Design Requirements
Requirements Identified in Related Work
Design Solution: The Fore-Watch
Future Work
References
All Topics
Computer Science
Human-Computer Interaction

Green

Profile image of Patricia KlucknerPatricia Kluckner

2013

Abstract

Besides saving energy, using it at the right time (i.e. when there is a supply surplus, and the power is produced by sustainable power sources such as hydroelectricity or wind) is an important possibility to achieve positive effects for the environment. To enable the user to align their behavior with the dynamics of the energy generation they need to be informed about the current status of power supply and grid capacity. Furthermore, to be able to plan their behavior and possibly delay or advance consumption activities to more proper moments they also need to have access to high-quality forecasts about the future status of green energy supply. In this paper we present an ambient display design solution based on a common watch that is optimized for providing this information in an unobtrusive, ambient and persuasive way. We present and discuss requirements identified by use of literature analysis, focus groups and end-user questionnaires, outline approaches to calculate basic power generation forecasts based on weather forecast data and present an ambient interface concept designed to meet the identified requirements. We conclude that the developed approach has high potential to support desired behavior changes, and that achieving acceptable accuracy levels for the generation forecast is feasible with relatively little effort.

Related papers

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Stephen Makonin, Bob Gill

2013 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, 2013

Many homeowners and occupants are interested in energy conservation for economical and/or ecological reasons. A number of commercial energy conservation solutions exist on the market today. However, these products contain closed systems and do not provide easy access to much of the raw data needed for more sophisticated analysis. An open source solution would be a great benefit for homeowners and occupants, allowing access to (and custom analysis of) raw power readings. We present a complete open source solution that monitors power, stores raw power readings, and makes provision for an in-home display, that informs stakeholders about energy consumption through a real-time ambient feedback effectively becoming an eco-feedback device.

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A qualitative study of users' engagement with real-time feedback from in-house energy consumption displays
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We explore how householders interact with energy consumption displays. Users' level of engagement with the display influence achieved savings. User's motivation, level of involvement and prior attitudes are key elements.

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DEHEMS: empowering the domestic energy consumer with persuasive interfaces
Grahame Cooper

Globally, there is rising concern about the impact of energy consumption on the environment, coinciding with increasing energy costs. The Digital Environment Home Energy Management System (DEHEMS) project aims to provide householders with persuasive tools that improve awareness of the energy behaviour of their household and allow them to manage their energy consumption more efficiently. This paper presents the overview of the envisioned DEHEMS system, and proposes that there is a real user requirement for intelligent, persuasive energy monitoring systems.

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Watt-I-See: Design and Evaluation of an Interactive Installation Using Eco-feedforward Strategies
Valentina Nisi

Interacting with Computers, 2017

In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of Watt-I-See (WISE), a tangible interactive installation aimed at probing awareness in two target audiences (children and adults) about renewable energy resources that could inform eco-feedforward strategies. Our system combines a tangible interface representing five different energy sources, with a set of Lego™ blocks used to manipulate different weather conditions that affect the available energy mix. Through the evaluation of WISE, our main goal was to expose users to the effort necessary to produce the energy used in our day-today lives. We evaluated the installation separately for children and adults. The focus on children was due to their importance in the overall household consumption and their role in future scenarios where consumers will have to adapt to the availability of renewable energy sources. The focus on adults was to observe the impact of such information in their decision making regarding their routines. Our findings highlight the success of the interface in engaging children and adults, creating awareness between weather conditions and energy production and the fossil-fuel energy baseline in the grid. Overall, the study highlights the importance of providing a close point-of-interaction feedback as it enables a better understanding of energy-related decisions, reactions, and availability of resources. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS • A tangible interactive installation was designed to probe awareness about energy resources. • The installation was evaluated with two separate types of users: adults and children. • Users perceived its information as useful and could integrate it into their daily lives. • New directions for eco-feedback systems that use strategies to control or modify the consumption based on the availability of resources.

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Energy Savings by User Interaction and Visualisation
Josefin Lassinantti, Peter Parnes

Abstract. Environmental issues are a reoccurring discussion topic among politicians, researchers and citizens all around the world. Climate changes and pollution are both important issues that need to be dealt with to slow down their impact. Within the IS area, the acknowledgement of these issues has been slow, and it is now time to start contributing. In this paper an illustration of an approach to user interaction for energy saving is given.

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Two Actors: Providers and Consumers inform the Design of an Ambient Energy Saving Display with Persuasive Strategies
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Ellen Do

The Energy Puppet is an ambient display device that provides peripheral awareness of energy consumption for individual home appliances. The display produces different "pet-like" behavioral reactions according to energy use patterns of the appliances to give homeowners an indication of their energy consumption status. The puppet would raise its "arms" in victory to display normal consumption rate, or its "eyes" would change color to red and "roar" to warn the homeowners when the specific appliance reaches dangerously high consumption rates. The assumption is that the awareness of energy consumption could affect how people consume and control energy use in their households. This paper describes the usage scenarios and the design and implementation of Energy Puppet and discusses future research directions.

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Marcus Specht

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The paper presents a project that sets up to make energy consumption data visible and accessible to employees by providing dynamic situated consumption feedback at the workplace. Therefore a supporting infrastructure as well as two example applications have been implemented and evaluated. The resulting prototype fosters a ubiquitous learning process among the employees with the goal to change their consumption behaviour as well as the attitudes towards energy conservation.

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Designing and Evaluating Ambient Tangible Interfaces for Shifting Energy Supply in the Workplace
Maxime Daniel

2017

The electrical grid must always be supplied with as much electricity as is taken from it. However, the greater the share of fluctuating renewable energy sources, the more difficult it becomes to manage power supply. In order to help, interactive systems have been designed to encourage users in using renewable energy when there is plenty of it rather than when there is little (i.e. shifting energy supply). Most of these systems use ambient interfaces to represent forecast information on the availability of renewable energy. Yet, it is unclear which ambient interfaces are more effective in enhancing ambient awareness and maintaining new practices for shifting energy supply. We think that parameters such as perceptible artefacts (e.g., shape-changing, color-changing) influence the effectiveness of ambient interfaces. To answer this concern, we study shifting energy supply with laptops in the workplace. Because practices for shifting energy supply with laptops have yet to be identified,...

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References (21)

  1. Abrahamse, W., Wokje, A., Steg, L., Vlek, C., & Rothengatter, T. (2005). A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3), 273-291.
  2. Darby, S., 2006, The effectiveness of feedback on energy consumption. A review for DEFRA of the literature on metering, billing and direct displays. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
  3. Davis, J., 2010, Participatory design for sustainable campus living. In Proceedings CHI Extended Abstracts. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3877-3882.
  4. E-Control: Ökostrombericht 2009
  5. Energy AWARE Clock, http://www.tii.se/node/5984
  6. Energy Orb, http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/PGE.html
  7. Fischer, C. (2008). Feedback on household electricity consumption: a tool for saving energy? Energy Efficiency, 1, 79-104.
  8. Garc, M.B. & Dubus, L., 2007. Forecasting precipitation for hydroelectric power management: how to exploit GCM ' s seasonal ensemble forecasts. International Journal of Climatology, 1705, pp.1691-1705.
  9. Gerdenitsch, C., Schrammel, J., Döbelt, S., Tscheligi, M. (2011). Creating Persuasive Technologies for Sustainability -Identifying Barriers Limiting the Target Behavior. Persuasive 2011.
  10. Google PowerMeter, http://www.google.com/powermeter/about/
  11. GreenPocket, http://www.greenpocket.de/
  12. Gross, G.; Galiana, F.D., 1987, Short-term load forecasting. Proceedings of the IEEE, Volume:75, Issue:12.
  13. Gustafsson, A. & Gyllenswärd, M. 2005, The Power-Aware Cord: Energy Awareness through Ambient Information Display. In Proceedings CHI 05, ACM, NY, USA.
  14. Halskov, K. & Dalsgard, P., 2006, Inspiration card workshops. In Proceedings of the 6th conference on Designing Interactive systems (DIS '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2-11.
  15. Hargreaves, T., Nye, A., Burges, J., 2010, Making energy visible: A qualitative field study of how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors. Energy Policy 38, 6111-6119.
  16. Jacucci G., Spagnolli A., Gamberini L., Chalambalakis A., Björksog C., Bertoncini M., Torstensson C., Monti P. (2009). Designing Effective feedback of Electricity Consumption for Mobile User Interfaces. PsychNology Journal, 7(3), 265 -289.
  17. Kollmuss, A., Agyeman, J., 2002. Mind the Gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to. Environmental Education 8(3), 239-260.
  18. Midden, C.J.H. ; Meter, J.F.; Weenig, M.W.H.; Zieverink, H.J.A. (1983) Using feedback, reinforcement and information to reduce energy consumption in households: A field- experiment. Journal of Economic Psychology, 3(1), 65-86.
  19. Neuman, K. (1986). Personal values and commitment to energy conservation. Environment and Behavior, 18 (1), 53-74.
  20. Wattson, http://www.diykyoto.com/uk
  21. WindFX, University of Innsbruck, http://imgi.uibk.ac.at/dynamics/windfx

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Patricia Kluckner

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

Besides saving energy, using it at the right time (i.e. when there is a supply surplus, and the power is produced by sustainable power sources such as hydroelectricity or wind) is an important possibility to achieve positive effects for the environment. To enable the user to align their behavior with the dynamics of the energy generation they need to be informed about the current status of power supply and grid capacity. Furthermore, to be able to plan their behavior and possibly delay or advance consumption activities to more proper moments they also need to have access to high-quality forecasts about the future status of green energy supply. In this paper we present an ambient display design solution based on a common watch that is optimized for providing this information in an unobtrusive, ambient and persuasive way. We present and discuss requirements identified by use of literature analysis, focus groups and end-user questionnaires, outline approaches to calculate basic power generation forecasts based on weather forecast data and present an ambient interface concept designed to meet the identified requirements. We conclude that the developed approach has high potential to support desired behavior changes, and that achieving acceptable accuracy levels for the generation forecast is feasible with relatively little effort.

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Improving long-term Persuasion for Energy Consumption Behavior: User-centered Development of an Ambient Persuasive Display for private Households
Patricia Kluckner

This doctoral research examines how residents, while monitoring forecast and feedback, use ambient persuasive technology to address behavior change regarding energy consumption. The most needed information is not presented in the context when interacting with the home appliances. Therefore, the monitoring lacks a direct and tangible link to the consumers' behavior. Current mechanisms frequently also have shortcomings with regard to long-term effectiveness, as initial results tend to wear off once the novelty effect is over. To accomplish this, requirement studies for the design of the persuasive ambient display and a long-term in-situ study and completed reflection workshops after the period of six months have been set up. Various online surveys and have analyzed the data about the visual cues, i.e., the forecast and feedback modalities have been conducted. The results of the research will inform the design researcher, the community of persuasive technology, and the psychology.

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Exploring the flexibility of everyday practices for shifting energy consumption through clockcast
Niels Olof Bouvin

Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction

Encouraging sustainable living by raising awareness of resource consumption has long been a topic within HCI. However, getting people to change behavior when it comes to energy consumption is difficult. This is one of the major challenges ahead for future energy systems, in particular if resources are renewable and plentiful. We developed the ClockCast prototypes (web and clock forecast) to explore demand response and the flexibility potential of everyday practices. We wanted to reframe the conversation on demand response: from highlighting when not to use energy to highlighting when to use it. The ClockCast prototypes display the best times to use electricity, and they were complemented by proactive and positive suggestions. We conducted a pilot study with five different households to uncover the socio-technical challenges around shifting consumption and the participants' experiences with the prototypes. While the participants increased their awareness of the environmental implications of their actions, shifted some electricity use, and found the forecasts useful, some participants also reported newfound guilt when they did not follow the forecasts.

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Eco-Feedback on the Go: Motivating Energy Awareness
Giulio Jacucci

Computer, 2011

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Exploring Persuasion in the Home: Results of a Long-Term Study on Energy Consumption Behavior
Patricia Kluckner

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013

This paper presents a seven-months field study on a persuasive ambient display in private households. The FORE-Watch aims at adjusting the consumption behavior of energy users in 24 multi-person households and persuading them to change their timing of consumption activities; half of them were shown a forecast of the occupancy rate of the local energy grid (i.e., grid status), and the other half were shown how much energy will be delivered by green sources such as windmills (i.e., green energy). Our qualitative and quantitative survey and the energy consumption data revealed that the grid status group showed a more constant behavior than the green energy, indicating that the more dynamic forecast presentation did not lead to the same type of behavior change as the static forecast presentation. Overall, the FORE-Watch aroused awareness, attention and interest through permanent presence, clear and simple information, and changed the energy consumption behavior of our participants.

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Related topics

  • User Centered Design
  • Eco Feedback
  • Ambient Display
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