Gz Gamze Dane

Are building users prepared for energy flexible buildings—A large-scale survey in the Netherlands

Building energy flexibility might play a crucial role in demand side management for integrating intermittent renewables into smart grids. The potential of building energy flexibility depends not only on the physical characteristics of a building but also on occupant behaviour in the building. Building users will have to adopt smart technologies and to change their daily energy use behaviours or routines, if energy flexibility is to be achieved. The willingness of users to make changes will determine how much demand flexibility can be achieved in buildings and whether energy flexible buildings can be realized. This will have a considerable impact on the transition to smart grids. This study is thus to assess the perception of smart grids and energy flexible buildings by building users, and their readiness for them on a large scale. We attempted to identify the key characteristics of the ideal user of flexible buildings. A questionnaire was designed and administered as an online survey in the Netherlands. The questionnaire consisted of questions about the sociodemographic characteristics of the current users, house type, household composition, current energy use behaviour, willingness to use smart technologies, and willingness to change energy use behaviour. The survey was completed by 835 respondents, of which 785 (94%) were considered to have provided a genuine response. Our analysis showed that the concept of smart grids is an unfamiliar one, as more than 60% of the respondents had never heard of smart grids. However, unfamiliarity with smart grids increased with age, and half of the respondents aged 20–29years old were aware of the concept. Monetary incentives were identified as the biggest motivating factor for adoption of smart grid technologies. It was also found that people would be most in favour of acquiring smart dishwashers (65% of the respondents) and refrigerator/freezers (60%). Statistical analysis shows that people who are willing to use smart technologies are also willing to change their behaviour, and can thus be categorised as potentially flexible building users. Given certain assumptions, 11% of the respondents were found to be potentially flexible building users. To encourage people to be prepared for energy flexible buildings, awareness of smart grids will have to be increased, and the adoption of smart technologies may have to be promoted by providing incentives such as financial rewards.

Money Allocation to Out-of-Home Leisure Activities and the Organization of These Activities in Time and Space

Monetary budgets influence activity participation and related travel as they demarcate limits on how people organize their activities in time and space. In this paper, we are interested in money allocation to out-of-home leisure activities and how this is affected by duration, sociodemographics, and time-location variables. Analyses were carried out by applying a seemingly unrelated regression model to a leisure activity data set. The analyses revealed that expenditures for out-of-home leisure activities are influenced by the variables mentioned above. Moreover, the results indicate that there is a substitution between expenditure of each activity.

Ageing populations and travel

The effectiveness of sustainable transport policies ultimately depends on the response of different lifecycle groups to these policies. This chapter is concerned with one such lifecycle group: the elderly. They are also known in the literature as ‘solitary survivors’ or ‘mature’ groups (Wells and Gubar, 1966; Lawson, 1991; Fodness, 1992). It is an interesting group for a variety of reasons. First, the elderly need to adjust to changing needs and a shifting institutional context. After retirement they may have more discretionary time, they may be empty-nesters, although their household caring tasks may perhaps be substituted by grandparenting tasks. The new generation of elderly is said to have accumulated more wealth and resources (e.g., Spinney et al., 2009). Moreover, in general, their health is better than that of previous generations of elderly, giving them more opportunities to stay active and travel (Ziegler and Schwanen, 2011). On the other hand, they are less flexible in adjusting to changes, i.e., diminishing public urban facilities and transportation resources (e.g., Rosenbloom, 2001; Collia et al., 2003; Hildebrand, 2003). These considerations suggest they are more likely to continue travelling, with detrimental effects on sustainable transport policy ambitions. Little empirical evidence is, however, known about the travel behaviour of the elderly. This chapter summarises results of our previous analyses and activity-travel behaviour of this lifecycle group and adds the results of some new analyses that were specifically conducted for this chapter.