Householders’ readiness for demand-side response: A qualitative study of how domestic tasks might be shifted in time
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were UK university staff and students, and the parents of students attending university open days. They were recruited at the open days or using flyers, online notice boards, university mailing lists and convenience sampling from our staff. No financial incentives were offered.
Thirty-three people participated, 28 of whom (85%) were personally responsible for making sure energy bills were paid in their home. Sixteen participants (49%) were male and 17 (51%) were female. Age was
Results
We break the analysis into three sections: (1) a summary of responses to the various prototype tariffs, (2) facilitators and barriers to shifting the time of consumption, and (3) strategies for responding to time-of-use tariffs to minimise cost. Qualitative findings are presented thematically within each section. A sample of participant quotations has been provided to give the reader a flavour of how the themes arose from the data.
Discussion
This study used a think-aloud protocol to explore decision-making when people were shown putative time of use (ToU) tariffs representing variable financial and carbon costs of energy consumption. Participants were more receptive to a complex three-tier tariff than a simple two-tier tariff, going as far as considering demand-side response behaviour for the three-tier tariff that they specifically ruled out for the two-tier tariff. The two-tier model was perceived as overly simplistic and
Conclusions
When presented with hypothetical energy tariffs that showed time-variable financial or carbon information, participants showed a willingness to respond to relatively complex variable price structures. Indeed, the three-tier price structure tested here was preferred over a two-tier tariff – to the extent of prompting people to consider the very same behaviour changes that they were less amenable to under the simpler tariff. Demand-side response to variable prices seemed most likely when price
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Ian Walker: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Aimie Hope: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant EP/K036211/1, High Energy And Power Density (HEAPD) Solutions to Large Energy Deficits.