Energy Consumption Visualisation Prototypes

Danish city of Sønderborg. The focus of this initial exercise was to explore how households desired their electricity consumption to be visualised and how these visualisations would be related to household activities. The two participating households had smart meters installed (the data from which we were granted access to), but did not have any energy monitoring or eco-feedback installed other than the ability to log in to their energy utility’s website for numerical tables of recent usage.

From the energy use data obtained from the smart meters, two alternative visualisation prototypes were created and trialled with two separate households.

3.1.1 Background and justification for methodology

The visualisation prototypes were largely exploratory activities at the front end of the research process and thus were not firmly grounded in existing literature. At the same time, however, we did wish to engage householders in the early stage of the design process in the tradition of Participatory Design (Greenbaum and Kyng 1991).

Inspiration for the visualisations was gathered from a wide range of sources including visualisation from the science of remote sensing (Knudby et al. 2010, Youngentob et al. 2011), Geographical Information Systems (GIS) literature (Shoval et al. 2010) and eco-feedback literature concerned with energy consumption

visualisations (Pierce et al. 2008, Karjalainen 2011). The visualisations were the product of inspiration from these sources as well as discussions and sketches drawn by the members of the research group. The intent of the research team during the exercise was not to showcase our visualisations to passive participants, but in the spirit of Participatory Design, to actively engage households in their energy

consumption information through the visualisations we had created from their smart metered data and to generate a shared understanding of their practices in the home in relation to their energy use. The prototypes represented a somewhat atypical

inclusion of quantitative data in an otherwise ethnographically informed qualitative research paradigm.

3.1.2 Study Population

Two households took part in the energy consumption visualisation prototypes. Both households were located in Sønderborg in Southern Denmark and both were married.

One couple was in their 20’s with a small child, the other couple were in their 60’s with grown up children living independently. In each case, both the husband and wife were present and took part in the prototype activities.

3.1.3 Research Design: Visualisation Prototype 1

The first visualisation prototype involved plotting the household’s daily consumption on a number of simple line graphs on sheets of A3 transparent paper. The X axis represented kilowatt hours and the Y axis represented the time of day from midnight

to midnight. Identical axes were also drawn on a single standard sheet of white A3 paper, upon which the transparencies would later be overlaid. Separately a number of paper icons were created representing common household appliances (refer Figure 3-1 Visualisation Prototype 1).

Initially we asked the household (a husband and wife) to place the icons on the blank white A3 sheet according to the time of day they typically used those items. Once this activity was completed we overlaid the various days’ consumption graphs drawn on the A3 transparencies to determine whether the (self-reported) timing of the use of different appliances corresponded to peaks or troughs in their consumption data.

Figure 3-1 Visualisation Prototype 1

After the design intervention discussions were held between participants and designers, with participants questioned about what they had learned, whether the visualisation provided them with enough information and how they could be improved. The husband and wife enjoyed the exercise, gaining satisfaction from being able to reconcile their appliance usage with their consumption graphs for different days. While both participants appreciated the visualisation as a stand-alone tool for reconciling their energy consumption with daily routines, both mentioned that further information would be helpful to compare the visualisations to. The deployment of this Visualisation Prototype is discussed in Chapter 4: “The Value of Smart Metering Household Electricity Consumption”.

3.1.4 Research Design: Visualisation Prototype 2

The second visualisation prototype focused on peak demand. Based on several days of smart metered data, a cartoon animation was created, showing the sun tracking an arc over a house (refer Figure 3-2 Visualisation Prototype 2). The date was shown to the top right of the screen, while the time of day (represented as 00, 03, 06, 09, 12 etc) was plotted below the house on an X axis. The hour of the day at which the peak consumption in the home occurred for each day was represented by a small explosion at the corresponding time of day and was then plotted on the graph to the top left.

Figure 3-2 Visualisation Prototype 2 represents a still-frame from the animation once it had been running for several days. It can be seen that the household’s peak consumption occurred most commonly at 22:00 in the evening. The animation was played to the husband and wife of the household from a laptop computer.

Figure 3-2 Visualisation Prototype 2

As per the first Visualisation Prototype, discussions were held between designer and participants following the exercise with suggestions for how it could be improved in future design iterations. This visualisation was also well received, however, it

became clear throughout the exercise that the visualisation would be of limited use to the family in practice without additional information such as quantitative aggregates of total consumption or the relative contribution of each appliance or monthly consumption totals. While the aim of both Visualisation Prototypes was to actively engage participants in their energy consumption, this visualisation was less

participatory in nature than the first and after watching the animation, the participants were less able to reconcile their energy consumption with their daily activities

beyond guesswork only. This second Visualisation Prototype is also discussed in Chapter 4: “The Value of Smart Metering Household Electricity Consumption”.

3.1.5 Analysis of visualisation prototypes

Due to the exploratory nature of the visualisation prototypes, the analysis process was informal and consisted of a shared sense-making of findings through discussions with the participants over their experiences at the end of each exercise, rather than a separate analysis by the researchers following the event. Through this process the researchers noted down points of interest, likes, dislikes, suggested improvements to the visualisations and fruitful areas for further research.

3.2 IDEATION WORKSHOP: BEYOND THE TARIFF- EXPLORING THE