An Experimental Investigation on the Comprehension of Electricity Consumption, Generation and Grid Supply Visualization

Abstract

Energy consumption at the household level has a significant environmental impact. However, it is often difficult for end users to understand this complex topic. Hence, end users need to sight and understand their own energy data by means of appropriate visualizations to achieve a sustainable change towards more efficient energy consumption behavior. By means of an experimental online survey, the comprehension of energy data visualizations with regard to the daily electricity consumption of a multi-person household was surveyed. A total of n = 538 respondents were asked about their comprehension at three levels of difficulty, considering the response duration. The results show that comprehension differs depending on the energy data visualization type and its information density. This work contributes to determine appropriate visualization types to unleash potential for more energy efficient end user behavior.