Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
FROM THE BLOG
Load profiles and changing household energy use
I recently attended a fascinating workshop on household energy practices at Durham University
(hosted and organized by Harriet Bulkeley and her research team). The workshop was for a Social
Science Advisory Group, which has been established to advise on Northern Powergrid and British
Gas's Customer Led Network Revolution. This scheme centres around the largest smart-grid
project in the UK (involving 14,000 homes and costing £54 million to implement). While our
discussions were broad ranging and considered the potential impacts of smart metering and in-
house energy displays on household energy usage, one of the most interesting things about the
workshop for me was the perspective it provided on the processes that are driving the restructuring
of the domestic and commercial energy market in the UK.
While the move towards smart-grids and meters is, of course, being driven by a desire to reduce,
in aggregate, household energy use, and thus help the UK along the road to a lower carbon economy,
it is also being conditioned by issues of daily household demand and energy security.
Energy use load profiles produced by the UK's national grid reveal that there are significant daily
fluctuations that exist in British energy use (with the peak usage in the morning and evening periods).
It is interesting to note that with the onset of the low-carbon electric economy, these peak energy
use periods are likely to see more energy demands being placed upon them (as people plug in their
electric cars after returning home from a long day of work). Given the great pressures that such load
profiles place on energy supply networks during peak periods, energy suppliers are not only
interested in how to make the home more energy efficient, but also how to redistribute energy use
throughout the day.
The redistribution of energy use has, of course, been a long-term concern of energy suppliers.
As a previous user of storage heaters I was able to make the most of the low, off-peak energy tariffs
associated with the so-called Economy Seven initiative. But current discussions about the timing
of domestic energy practices have interesting implications for behaviour change policies. It appears
that shifting people's TV watching practices from the peak evening slot of 7-9 pm will be difficult,
as will moving the timing of when people cook their evening meals. There may be more flexibility,
however, as to precisely when people choose to take a bath/shower or put their washing machines
on. New tariffs are being used to incentivize off-peak energy use, but as all UK homes join smart
grids over the next decade, it will be interesting to see just how flexible our domestic energy use
routines actually are.
suggests that even if behaviour changing policies
may nudge households to fit loft insulation, or
invest in renewable energy technologies, these
behaviour changes are likely to be offset by the
continuing value that we place on the accumula-
tion of wealth and possessions. The
Common
Cause
report thus suggests that public policy
should devote more attention to promoting the
short-term psychological strategies to shift
behaviour, while not addressing our deeper socio-
cultural values (see Crompton, 2010). As we
discussed in th
e first section of this chapter,
in the
western world many of our values are oriented
towards the goals of mass consumption and
the pleasures and prestige that we attach to the
ownership of goods. The
Common Cause
report
