Notions of ‘house’ and notions of ‘home’ their importance for

interventions to reduce domestic electricity consumptionTim Harries

Kingston University London

Enrico CostanzaUniversity of Southampton

Maria das Graças BrightwellUniversidade Federal de Santa Catarina

AlertMe Metre Server

Interactiveweb interface

Data

The Transforming Feedback study

• Increase user engagement with feedback• Use visualisations to enhance consumption awareness

3-week trial and in-depth interviews (N=12) Residents of Chertsey, a London suburb

Sampling:• excluded highly numerate

professions • more women than men

-secretary-social worker-library assistant-gardener-health worker-project manager-sales manager-homemaker

etc.

Electricity-use is not about electricity It’s about the meanings of the activities that use electricity

Effective feedback needs to mirror this Not abstract... connected with everyday life

The interactive interface

Users could label the different parts of their electricity usage

...and see what proportion of their consumption was explained by different practices

For householders, energy saving is about frugality, not thrift (see Evans 2001)

Not reduction in consumption for the sake of it Reduction in waste

- i.e. The use of electricity for no ‘benefit’

[…] the principles of personal valuation and the bases of exchange and reciprocity will be […] distinguished and distinguishable from those that operate in the market and the public sphere.

[…] each household will reveal a particular and unique culture which provides the basis for the security and identity of the household or family as a whole, as well as that of its individual members

The household is a ‘moral economy’

People are not Resource Man – efficient, rational consumers (Strengers, 2013)

‘Waste’ is a common heuristic

Moral economy (Silverstone et al 1992)

I think I’m reasonably energy efficient and only kind of use things that I need to or that I know about.

I mean people would say, do you need to leave a light on for a cat? [Laughs] No, clearly I don’t, but it’s my choice to do that.

Being the big softie I am, I leave the hall light on for her; just completely ridiculous, I know.

An example of the moral economy of the home

As a mother it’s your role to provide a good,

healthy, balanced, nutritious meal and all that

kind of thing: wholesome cooking. And at the

same time you don’t want to use the

electricity. So it’s a bit of a quarrel in my head

about what is the best thing to do.

Conflict between the moral economy of the home and the ‘save-energy’ discourse

Summary

Normal people rarely behave like ‘Resource Man’

People need to be able to relate energy use to their lives: hour-by-hour visualisations vital

Interaction with displays also helpful (e.g. labelling)

But although less abstract visualisations of energy-use help people see how they use energy, they also remind them of why they do. This generates a conflict between the moral economy of ‘home’ and the efficiency discourse of ‘house’.

Thank youThank you