Discussion

5.1. The research output and its application

The output of our research would be a toolkit of tailored solutions to increase interaction of customers with the energy system, in particular demand-side management. Hence, greater benefits to the electricity system will result in addition to greater personal satisfaction and personal benefits such as greater monetary savings. Companies, e.g. energy suppliers, could offer those tailored solutions. For example, they could devise an online questionnaire to assess a person’s personality traits, comfort preferences and living circumstances, and develop/supply the most suitable tailored DSM offering based on the responses.

5.2. Limitations

We propose mainly looking at two sources of interindividual variation: personality traits and intelligence. However, there might be many more factors that have an equal or larger impact on explaining variability in preferences between customers, such as value orientations. Also, given that the preliminary testing will be done in the lab, and only the final testing in the field, it might be that solutions that are preferred in lab

settings are not the best ones in the field. Obviously, there is also the option that our initial assumption, that variability between consumers matters, is incorrect and that, in fact, tailored solutions are not superior to standard solutions as there might be very simple drivers applying to everyone, such as that the greatest monetary savings are the most important fact to increase interaction with the energy system. However, we would be able to identify this in the experimental field study that contrasts tailored and standard solutions; and whilst not conforming our hypotheses, it would bring valuable insights.

5.3. Conclusions

By looking at acceptance of and engagement with DSM through the lenses of both psychology and building science, a greater number and a greater variety of variables are considered, likely explaining a greater share of variability between people. That people will vary in their preferences is very likely based on evidence from both building science and psychology showing the huge variability between people. A mono-discipline approach would likely miss out on important variables. The same is true for methods – by explicitly encompassing core methods of psychology, such as experimental design, and of building science, such as careful sensing of the environment, a richer data set is collected and can inform the outcomes.

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Authors