Jeroen Stragier

Introducing Smart grids in residential contexts: Consumers' perception of smart household appliances

A more energy efficient supply and demand in household settings is high on the agenda. Smart grids, smart meters, demand side management and smart appliances play a crucial role in this context. Many stakeholders are involved, but the exact role of the customer is often neglected. More specifically, his opinion, attitude, drivers or barriers towards new ways of energy consumption and energy management. This paper employs a user-centric perspective. It aims at mapping consumers perception of the possibilities of demand side management through smart household appliances. A quantitative survey was conducted among 500 households spread over Flanders, Belgium. In this paper, the results of this survey with regard to the respondents perception of smart appliances are presented. The Technology Acceptance Model was used as the theoretical framework to measure these perceptions.

Potential of Active Demand Reduction with Residential Wet Appliances: A Case Study for Belgium

Two problems are tackled in this paper: determining the active demand reduction potential of wet appliances and making time series estimates from project data. The former is an application of the latter. Household groups representative to the average population are defined by applying expectation maximization clustering to a representative measurement set (n = 1363). Attitudes toward active demand are found by conducting a survey (n = 418). Project data (n = 58) containing wet appliance measurements are scaled up by adapting the clustering algorithm, spreading the electricity demand of the wet appliances over the clusters. The potential for active demand reduction with wet appliances is 4% of the total residential power demand, assuming that 29% of the households take part. The potential is in the order of magnitude of the power reserves, but does not fulfill availability and response time requirements.

Smart, smarter, smartest… the consumer meets the smart electrical grid

In the current debate towards a more energy efficient supply and demand in household settings, notions such as smart grids, smart meters and smart appliances are of main importance. Different stakeholders are involved, but often neglected is the exact role of the customer, or more specific, his opinion, attitude, drivers or barriers towards these developments. As a consequence, this paper employs a user-centric perspective. It addresses issues such as the effect of giving personalized feedback on energy consumption and refers to studies that have been conducted concerning a possible future implementation of smart meters and smart appliances. Furthermore, it describes an innovative combination of different methodological techniques on the level of energy monitoring and user interrogation. This methodological set-up will allow to gain a clear insight in the willingness of consumers to accept different kinds of measures when it comes to smart metering and smart appliances in their daily life, as to have an efficient user adoption in the future.

Broadcast yourself: An exploratory study of sharing physical activity on social networking sites

This article focuses on the practice of self-tracking of physical activity data and sharing it via social networking sites. The use of wearable technology devices and the latest smartphones with built-in GPS tracking technology – capturing the speed, distance and duration of physical activities such as running and cycling – is a striking example of the trend towards quantifying sports performances. The study explores the determinants and motivations of recreational athletes to share physical activity status updates on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Evidence is drawn from a large-scale survey of 400 users of Strava, a popular fitness app and online community. The results suggest that intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivations determine a persons willingness to share physical activity via social networking sites.

Studying Physical Activity Using Social Media: An Analysis of the Added Value of RunKeeper Tweets

Smartphones and mobile fitness applications or apps have brought a new experience to physical activities such as running, walking, and cycling. Increased sharing of these activities by users of social networking sites affords the collection of large physical activity datasets. This study assesses to what extent raw data from mobile fitness applications (MFAs) posted on Twitter can be used for studying physical activity and what added value they can provide. A total of 22,258 tweets collected over a nine-month period using RunKeeper mobile fitness app were analyzed. A quantitative analysis of the entire data set and a content analysis of a subset of 2,868 tweets were performed. The data from MFAs exchanged via Twitter provided rich information on various aspects of physical activity including timing and distance of runs, bicycle rides, and walks. Personal reflections shared by RunKeeper users contained additional details on how the activity was experienced. Although further research is needed to determine the representativeness and generalizability of such data, the results of this study may indicate an important direction for extending current methodological practices in physical activity research.

Kilowhat? A multidisciplinary approach on the development of a home energy management system

To a consumer, knowing how much energy you use is often a question mark. We get our energy bills and more often than not, they are surprisingly high. The coming of the smart grid and more specifically smart metering provides opportunities to create a better awareness on energy use among consumers. This research presents the user-centric development of a home energy management system. The focus of the research is not specifically on the functionalities per se, rather it lies on the inclusion of the energy end-user in the development process. Throughout the development, end-user research provided valuable input for the development of the system. Large quantitative surveys were alternated with small scale in-depth qualitative research. Each step generated the input for the next step in the research process, resulting in a system with functionalities tailored to the end-users needs and wants.