TY - JOUR
T1 - Feedback on electricity usage for home energy management
T2 - A social experiment in a local village of cold region
AU - Matsui, Kanae
AU - Ochiai, Hideya
AU - Yamagata, Yoshiki
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by the “Initiative for Strategic Adaptation to Climate Change project” of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan. We would like to thank the participants and the staff of the city office in Teshikaga-cho, Hokkaido, Japan. We thank Dr. Hajime Seya and Dr. Simon Benger for their valuable comments on this paper.
PY - 2014/5/1
Y1 - 2014/5/1
N2 - To mitigate global warming, it is essential for households to reduce CO2 emissions. Saving electricity is one solution for the reduction. To promote this reduction, saving electricity by households should be considered because household consumption is growing rapidly. In this paper, we developed a system for metering electricity consumption and providing it to households as feedback on electricity usage. Previous studies on how to promote household energy savings found that feedback in real-time on electricity usage could be effective. Our system provided two types of information through web pages, (1) nearly real-time electricity consumption information, and (2) action lists for how to save energy. To test the effectiveness of these types of information, the system was installed in four households in an extremely cold district in Hokkaido, Japan for 378 days. During 30days, data on electricity consumption was collected and stored. In the following month, a web page, which visualized nearly real-time electricity consumption, was opened to each household. After the experiment, an Internet-based questionnaire survey was conducted. The results obtained suggest that environmental awareness was an important aspect for inducing electricity saving behavior.
AB - To mitigate global warming, it is essential for households to reduce CO2 emissions. Saving electricity is one solution for the reduction. To promote this reduction, saving electricity by households should be considered because household consumption is growing rapidly. In this paper, we developed a system for metering electricity consumption and providing it to households as feedback on electricity usage. Previous studies on how to promote household energy savings found that feedback in real-time on electricity usage could be effective. Our system provided two types of information through web pages, (1) nearly real-time electricity consumption information, and (2) action lists for how to save energy. To test the effectiveness of these types of information, the system was installed in four households in an extremely cold district in Hokkaido, Japan for 378 days. During 30days, data on electricity consumption was collected and stored. In the following month, a web page, which visualized nearly real-time electricity consumption, was opened to each household. After the experiment, an Internet-based questionnaire survey was conducted. The results obtained suggest that environmental awareness was an important aspect for inducing electricity saving behavior.
KW - Behavior modification
KW - Electricity consumption data collection in a cold district
KW - Feedback visualization
KW - Saving electricity consumption by households
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897605328&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84897605328&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.01.049
DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.01.049
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84897605328
SN - 0306-2619
VL - 120
SP - 159
EP - 168
JO - Applied Energy
JF - Applied Energy
ER -
