Alexandra-Gwyn Paetz

Smart Homes as a Means to Sustainable Energy Consumption: A Study of Consumer Perceptions

European and national policies are aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and increasing energy efficiency—also in the household sector. For this purpose, new solutions for private homes based on information and communication technologies (ICT) are being developed and tested. However, up to now, hardly anyone has seen, experienced or lived in an environment that offers the full range of ICT-based energy management solutions. In this study, consumer reactions to a fully furnished and equipped smart home are analysed using focus groups (four groups with a total of 29 participants). The analysis looks at consumer perceptions of and reactions to an energy management system which optimizes electricity consumption based on different ICT solutions. The topics that were demonstrated in practice and then discussed with the participants included variable tariffs, smart metering, smart appliances, and home automation. In general, there were positive group reactions to the smart home environment. Consumers saw many advantages for themselves; especially the chance to save money. However, giving up high levels of flexibility and adapting everyday routines to fit in with electricity tariffs were regarded as difficult. Smart appliances and smart meters were therefore considered to be necessary elements by most participants. Concerns regarding data privacy played a major role in one of the groups.

Dynamic electricity pricing—Which programs do consumers prefer?

Dynamic pricing is being discussed as one method of demand side management (DSM) which could be crucial for integrating more renewable energy sources into the electricity system. At the same time, there have been very few analyses of consumer preferences in this regard: Which type of pricing program are consumers most likely to choose and why? This paper sheds some light on these issues based on two empirical studies from Germany: (1) A questionnaire study including a conjoint analysis-design and (2) A field experiment with test-residents of a smart home laboratory. The results show that consumers are open to dynamic pricing, but prefer simple programs to complex and highly dynamic ones; smart home technologies including demand automation are seen as a prerequisite for DSM. The study provides some indications that consumers might be more willing to accept more dynamic pricing programs if they have the chance to experience in practice how these can be managed in everyday life. At the same time, the individual and societal advantages of such programs are not obvious to consumers. For this reason, any market roll-out will need to be accompanied by convincing communication and information campaigns to ensure that these advantages are perceived.

On the road to an electric mobility mass market - How can early adopters be characterized?

Different field trials and corresponding acceptance studies with new technologies have been carried out between 2010 and 2013 at the Chair of Energy Economics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Those involved Elec-tric Vehicle (EV) users, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicle users as well as persons with strong interest in EV and smart home technologies. In order to characterize early adopters the same item-sets con-cerning attitudes regarding climate change, prices and innovations as well as cor-responding socio-demographic characteristics, were used throughout all these studies and have been joined now and analyzed together. Additionally, regression methods have been applied in order to characterize early EV adopters based on a subsample of EV company car users in the French-German context. A binary logit model explaining private EV purchase intention has been developed. According to this model, early private EV adopters are likely to have a higher level of income, to have a household equipped with two or more cars and to travel more than 50 kilometers a day, not necessarily by car. This model additionally shows that possi-bilities to experience EV (e.g. by test drives) are important leverages to support adoption of EV by private car buyers. Respondents who already decided to pri-vately purchase an EV show significantly lower general price sensitivities than the LPG and CNG vehicle users.