In this study, 22 homes in Milton, Ontario had their electricity consumption monitored for between seven and 15 months, and they were provided access to their data via an online webportal. The webportal provided appliance-level and house-level data, allowed them to set consumption goals, and schedule when their appliances would be used. The households were chosen to participate because they had previously expressed interest in advanced smart meter grid technologies, and when contacted again by Milton Hydro, they agreed to participate in the study. The main question being asked in this research is: what effect, if any, does having access to one???s consumption data have on consumption? To investigate this question, consumption data from the monitoring period, and the previous year (the base year) were obtained from Milton Hydro and were used to determine how consumption changed between these two periods. The consumption data for the cooling months were weather normalized to account for increases in consumption that result from cooling the dwelling. Data regarding users??? engagement with the webportal, including how often they would login, for how long and what pages they were visiting, were collected from the webportal. An engagement index was adapted and refined from Peterson & Carrabis (2008), and along with the engagement data from the webportal, was used to calculate the engagement index. Data from two surveys were used to profile the households and to investigate their attitudes and behaviours towards electricity consumption. There were several key findings. First, engagement with the webportal was quite low; the engagement index (a value between zero and one) for the first three months the hub was open averaged 0.285 and ranged from 0 to 0.523. These numbers dropped by the end of the seventh month to an average engagement index of 0.163, and ranged from 0 to 0.341. The second key finding was that the hubs were not consistently conserving electricity; for the first three months, 10 of the 22 households had conserved electricity between the base year and monitoring period; at the end of the seventh month, this dropped to nine households. At the end of the third month, the change in consumption was an increase of 8.22%, and at the end of month seven it was an increase of 7.71%. The third finding was that there did not appear to be a connection between energy conserving attitudes and energy conserving behaviours. In the surveys, 12 households stated that their goal was to conserve electricity, however, of these 12, only four actually conserved electricity at the end of month seven. Finally, when comparing the engagement index with the change in consumption, there appeared to be only a weak, negative correlation between the variables. This weak correlation may be a result of two things: (1) a lack of engagement, which limits the ability to find correlation between engagement and change in consumption; (2) there is actually a weak relation between the two variables. Based on these findings, some recommendations are put forth, specifically about how to engage householders with the webportal. Suggestions include getting applications for mobile devices, and delivering electricity saving tips to households via e-mail, text message, and/or on the homepage of the portal. These tips could be given based on the season, or based on the goals that were set, and would encourage and explain to householders how to decrease consumption.

No description available.

Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) is an emerging research area concerned with the application of design strategies to influence consumer behaviour during the use phase of a product towards more sustainable action. Current DfSB research has primarily focussed on strategy definition and selection, with little research into formalising a mature design process through which to design these behaviour changing interventions. Furthermore, understanding the actual sustainability and behavioural impact yielded through such investigations is limited in addition to the suitability and transferability of evaluation methods and results having seldom been discussed. This thesis investigated how DfSB models and strategies can be implemented within a structured design process towards a sustainable change in user behaviour. This was achieved by focussing a case study within the UK social housing sector with the aim of reducing domestic energy consumption through behaviour changing intervention, whilst maintaining occupant defined comfort levels. Following an in depth study of physical and behavioural control mechanisms as well as comfort and energy within the research context, a behaviour changing prototype was developed through an augmented user-centred design process, resulting in a physical manifestation of one specific DfSB strategy feedback; a user agentive performance indicator. In order to evaluate this feedback prototype, an evaluation framework was developed, targeted at the three fundamental questions that arise when faced with the evaluation of a DfSB strategy led intervention: (1) Did the produced design solution function for the specified context? (2) Has the user's behaviour changed as a consequence of the design intervention? (3) Is the change in user s behaviour sustainable? Applying these core questions in practice through focus groups and user trials resulted in an evaluation of unparalleled depth. The findings of this thesis illustrate the success of using this augmented design process and tripartite questioning strategy towards the design and evaluation of a DfSB strategy led intervention, building a vital knowledge platform for the formalisation of transferable DfSB theory, design and evaluation methods.

Smart metering residential demand management programs, such as consumption feedback, variable pricing regimes and the remote control of appliances, are being used to respond to the resource management problems of peak electricity demand, climate change and water shortages. Like other demand management programs, these strategies fail to account for (and respond to) the reasons why people consume resources in their homes, namely to carry out everyday practices such as bathing, laundering, heating and cooling. In particular, comfort and cleanliness practices together constitute most of Australia's potable water consumption in urban centres, and represent most of household energy consumption. In addition, new household cooling practices involving air-conditioning appliances are the major contributor to the nation's rising peak electricity demand, which overloads the electricity system on hot days, costing consumers millions of dollars each year. The oversight of comf ort and cleanliness practices in smart metering demand management programs is concerning because these practices are continuing to shift and change, often in more resource-consuming directions, potentially negating the resource savings achieved through demand management programs. This thesis aims to bridge the problematic divide between the policies and strategies of demand managers, and the day-to-day practices which constitute everyday life. Using the empirical 'hook' of smart metering demand management programs and the everyday practices of comfort and cleanliness, this thesis develops a practice-based conceptual framework to study, understand and analyse these practices and the ways in which smart metering demand management programs reconfigure or further entrench them. A series of qualitative methods were employed in studying 65 households across four research groups, focusing specifically on the household practices of heating, cooling, bathing, laundering, toilet flushing and house cleaning. In addition, 27 interviews were conducted with smart metering industry stakeholders involved or implicated in delivering demand management strategies. Together, these lines of inquiry are used to analyse householders' existing and changing comfort and cleanliness practices, the role of several smart metering demand management strategies in reconfiguring these practices, and potential avenues and opportunities for further practice change in less resource-intensive directions. In particular, this thesis highlights the inherent contradictions and problems in accounting for everyday practices within the dominant demand management paradigm, and offers an alternative paradigm termed the co-management of everyday practices. The thesis concludes by briefly identifying the ways in which smart metering could potentially constrain or catalyse a transition towards this new paradigm.