Herrmann, Melanie Rosemarie; (2018) Smart energy feedback in the home: the effect of disaggregation and visualisation on householders' comprehension of electricity data. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Worldwide, households are being equipped with Smart Meters (SM) and other smart Residential Energy Feedback Systems (REFS). One of the aims of these systems is to help householders understand their consumption and to save money on their bill and to become more sustainable. This thesis examines how users make sense of smart electricity feedback, focusing on two aspects of how feedback is given. One aspect is the role of disaggregation, i.e. the provision of information about the energy consumption of individual household appliances in the home as opposed to aggregate feedback on total household consumption. The other aspect is how to visualise residential electricity data. To investigate these aspects, a mixed methods approach was taken: five qualitative interview studies and three lab experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of these two aspects of residential electricity feedback on householders’ understanding of how much energy everyday household practices consume. The evidence of the studies in this thesis suggests that interactive visualisations that show information about the energy use of individual appliances in the home are most useful for householders to understand and possibly decrease their consumption.

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