Children, parents and home energy use: Exploring motivations and limits to energy demand reduction

Fell, Michael; Chiu, Lai Fong

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2013.10.003

Cited by 56 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…For a given individual, education may be correlated with a high level of environmental concern, which might in turn determine whether they behave in proenvironmental ways [85]. This is in line with the study by Fell & Chiu [84] which recommends that environmental education be usefully promoted by policymakers as an instrument to engage communities in environmental issues and particularly to enhance children's role since previous findings from Uzzell [86] show them as 'potential catalysts of environmental change'. However, the results from Fell & Chiu's [84] study reveal that children were not willing to reduce daily activities which impact on household energy consumption directly (e.g.…”

Section: Approaches From Psychologysupporting

confidence: 69%

“…This is in line with the study by Fell & Chiu [84] which recommends that environmental education be usefully promoted by policymakers as an instrument to engage communities in environmental issues and particularly to enhance children's role since previous findings from Uzzell [86] show them as 'potential catalysts of environmental change'. However, the results from Fell & Chiu's [84] study reveal that children were not willing to reduce daily activities which impact on household energy consumption directly (e.g. playing games and watching TV), while the parents' role to encourage their children to reduce home energy use was outweighed by other factors such as their lack of time or concern about the impact on their energy bill.…”

Section: Approaches From Psychologysupporting

confidence: 68%

“…An alternative strategy for motivating households to reduce their energy use is focused on the environmental education of householders involving both parents and children [84]. For a given individual, education may be correlated with a high level of environmental concern, which might in turn determine whether they behave in proenvironmental ways [85].…”

Section: Approaches From Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

ICT entertainment appliances’ impact on domestic electricity consumption

Pothitou

Hanna

Chalvatzis

2017

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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Increased electricity consumption and environmental impacts of Information Communication Technology (ICT) have been subjects of research since the 1990s. This paper focuses on consumer electronics in households, in particular TVs, computers and their peripherals. ICT accounts for almost 15% of global domestic electricity use, including waste energy from devices left on standby which is estimated in the EU-27 to contribute 6% of residential energy demand. In Europe, the household electricity consumption from small electronic appliances, including ICT, increased by 2.5 times in 2011 compared to 1990. Similarly, in the UK, energy demand from electronic devices accounted for 23% of total household electricity use in 2012, compared to 12% in 1990. This is an outcome of the market saturation of new, cheaper ICT entertainment devices, facilitated by marketing strategies which identify new needs for consumers, as charted by the review of market growth in this paper. New increasingly portable laptops, smart phones and tablets with wireless connectivity allow householders to perform a wider range of activities in a wider range of locations throughout the home, such as social networking while the television is active.We suggest that policies which consider how to increase the energy efficiency of ICT devices alone are unlikely to be successful since effective strategies need to address how the drivers which have developed around the use of ICT can be adapted in order to conserve electricity in households. A range of policy solutions are discussed, including feedback, public information campaigns, environmental education, energy labelling, bans of, or taxation on the least efficient products as well as the use of a TV as central hub to perform the existing functions of multiple devices.

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Section: Approaches From Psychologysupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Approaches From Psychologysupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Approaches From Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

ICT entertainment appliances’ impact on domestic electricity consumption

Pothitou

Hanna

Chalvatzis

2017

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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“…Focus groups are a type of group interview which Krueger and Casey (2000, 4) describe as permitting the researcher 'to understand how people feel or think about an issue, product, or service'. They have previously been used to explore people's views on DSR (Darby and Pisica 2013;Rodden et al 2013) and agency in relation to energy use (Fell and Chiu 2014) and have the advantage of allowing participants to reflect and comment on each other's views.…”

Section: Focus Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring perceived control in domestic electricity demand-side response

Fell

Shipworth

Huebner

et al. 2014

Technology Analysis & Strategic Management

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Research into consumer acceptance of domestic electricity demand-side response (DSR) highlights loss of personal control as a key concern. This UK focus group study explored people's perceived control in relation to home energy use and DSR. Three DSR offerings were discussed: fixed and dynamic time of use (TOU) pricing and direct load control. Participants' main motivations for control were costs, comfort, time/flexibility and autonomy. The majority viewed a fixed TOU tariff as increasing personal control, particularly over costs. Dynamic TOU pricing divided opinion, with some perceiving more control over costs, while others were concerned about ease of use, requirement for automation, predictability and flexibility. Almost everyone saw direct load control as reducing their control, although some framed this only in terms of control over appliances, while others were concerned about their overall autonomy. Implications for future research and the design, targeting and communication of DSR products are discussed.

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“…Additionally, smart energy meters and pervasive environmental sensing technologies promote data-rich building environments that help to infer which occupant behaviors hold the greatest influence on energy performance outcomes [65][66][67]. Researchers have drawn from these available data sources in identifying correlations between observed system states (i.e., windows being opened/closed [31,38,48,[72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82], shades and blinds being drawn [79][80][81][82][83][84][85]); conditions or variables of the indoor and outdoor environment (i.e., indoor and outdoor air temperature, relative humidity); the attitudes, beliefs, satisfaction [86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94] and socio-demographic aspects of the occupant population [42,[99][100][101][102][103]; and actual building energy performance.…”

Section: 12supporting Research Advancementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The human dimensions of energy use in buildings: A review

D’Oca

Hong

Langevin

2018

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

290

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The "human dimensions" of energy use in buildings refer to the energy-related behaviors of key stakeholders that affect energy use over the building life cycle. Stakeholders include building designers, operators, managers, engineers, occupants, industry, vendors, and policymakers, who directly or indirectly influence the acts of designing, constructing, living, operating, managing, and regulating the built environments, from individual building up to the urban scale. Among factors driving high-performance buildings, human dimensions play a role that is as significant as that of technological advances. However, this factor is not well understood, and, as a result, human dimensions are often ignored or simplified by stakeholders. This paper presents a review of the literature on human dimensions of building energy use to assess the state-of-the-art in this topic area. The paper highlights research needs for fully integrating human dimensions into the building design and operation processes with the goal of reducing energy use in buildings while enhancing occupant comfort and productivity. This research focuses on identifying key needs for each stakeholder involved in a building's life cycle and takes an interdisciplinary focus that spans the fields of architecture and engineering design, sociology, data science, energy policy, codes, and standards to provide targeted insights.Greater understanding of the human dimensions of energy use has several potential benefits including reductions in operating cost for building owners; enhanced comfort conditions and productivity for building occupants; more effective building energy management and automation systems for building operators and energy managers; and the integration of more accurate control logic into the next generation of human-in-the-loop technologies. The review concludes by summarizing recommendations for policy makers and industry stakeholders for developing codes, standards, and technologies that can leverage the human dimensions of energy use to reliably predict and achieve energy use reductions in the residential and commercial buildings sectors.

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Children, parents and home energy use: Exploring motivations and limits to energy demand reduction

Cited by 56 publications

References 18 publications

ICT entertainment appliances’ impact on domestic electricity consumption

ICT entertainment appliances’ impact on domestic electricity consumption

Exploring perceived control in domestic electricity demand-side response

The human dimensions of energy use in buildings: A review

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