Research Outputs
Preferences on Home Energy Management Systems - A Study of Potentials for the Use of End User Flexibilities
Due to the increase of volatile renewable energy resources, additional flexibility in the electricity system is necessary to ensure a technically and economically efficient network operation. To tap flexibilities like private storages, participatory developed and user-friendly technical solutions are essential. In this work, the acceptance and the market potential of a home energy management system with focus on i) grid optimization, ii) self-consumption optimization, and iii) additional functions for increased comfort is presented. This is determined by means of a representative survey. The main results show that the perceived usefulness and accessibility are the most important influence factors affecting the end user’s intention to use. Based on the given acceptance, the solution provides a market potential of one third of the users for an increased use of flexibilities in the investigated area.
A Comprehensive Study on the Aesthetics of Electricity Consumption Graphs on Appliance Level and their Triggering Potential on Human Emotions
Sustainable energy consumption behavior in households is a decisive factor in contributing to climate protection. To provide residents comprehensible insights into their household’s energy consumption data, nonintrusive load monitoring on appliance level can assist. To give consumers a simple and comprehensible overview of their consumption data, which they also find aesthetically pleasing, in this work a two-stage experimental design is used to compare the perceived aesthetic appearance of different types of electricity consumption graphs on appliance level (aggregated or time-dependent) and their triggered emotion. First, a representative survey covers the general aesthetics assessment in a 2x3 mixed factorial design. Second, an in-depth eye-tracking and facial expression investigation is used to track and quantify emotions on different electricity consumption graphs on application level and their perceived advantages and disadvantages. The main results provide comprehensive insights into the aesthetics of electricity consumption visualizations to trigger positive emotions, in particular users’ preferences for simple and conventional graphs like bar charts.
Individuelle Emotionen als Unterstützung zur Visualisierung des Stromverbrauchs einzelner Haushaltsgeräte
How to visualize electricity consumption anomalies: The impact of chart types on triggered emotions and eye movements
Does electricity consumption make happy? The emotional dimensions of time-scaled electricity consumption graphs for household appliances
A Case Study of Socially-Accepted Potentials for the Use of End User Flexibility by Home Energy Management Systems
Due to the increase of volatile renewable energy resources, additional flexibility will be necessary in the electricity system in the future to ensure a technically and economically efficient network operation. Although home energy management systems hold potential for a supply of flexibility to the grid, private end users often neglect or even ignore recommendations regarding beneficial behavior. In this work, the social acceptance and requirements of a participatively developed home energy management system with focus on (i) system support optimization, (ii) self-consumption and self-sufficiency optimization, and (iii) additional comfort functions are determined. Subsequently, the socially-accepted flexibility potential of the home energy management system is estimated. Using methods of online household survey, cluster analysis, and energy-economic optimization, the socially-accepted techno-economic potential of households in a three-community cluster sample area is computed. Results show about a third of the participants accept the developed system. This yields a shiftable load of nearly 1.8 MW within the small sample area. Furthermore, the system yields the considerably larger monetary surplus on the supplier-side due to its focus on system support optimization. New electricity market opportunities are necessary to adequately reward a systemically useful load behavior of households.