Storm Drain Progress Report 2

Title
Representing and Visualizing Energy Use

Authors
Matthew Thurston
Tyler Howarth
Michael Odbert
Terry Smith
Jennifer Carlson

Abstract (addressing: what it is you are doing and why that is interesting and important)
As a group, we are creating tools for motivation and visualizing energy use. We want to design a system that makes people want to save energy  by bringing their exact energy use to their attention and presenting it in a way that can easily be understood.

Keywords
Energy - Any source of usable power, as fossil fuel, electricity, or solar radiation.
Represent - The act of portrayal, picturing, or other rendering in visible form.
Visualize - to make perceptible to the mind or imagination.

Problem / Goal
Statement of the Problem 
Everyone believes energy conservation is altruistic and important, but motivating people to change their energy behaviors is more difficult.  Representing energy use in a way that motivates real change is problematic, and working with behavioral patterns such as time inconsistency, bounded rationality, social preferences, and the public good problem (to be discussed below,) can be either disruptive or, if used well, effective in motivating individual energy conservation.

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  • Rationale — explain why the problem is interesting and important?
  • The problem is interesting because it involves changing human behavior, and what kinds of design people respond to more positively.  This is an important problem because in order to make a significant impact on the earth’s resources, people need to understand how their own energy use contributes to the overall problem.

Methodologies
 (e.g.: questionnaire, interview, data analysis, software development, testing of other developments…..)
We’ve been doing research online and collecting data that other organizations have used in terms of energy efficiency and motivating people to conserve energy.  We believe this method is preferable to doing our own surveys since there’s a high risk that with our resources the data wouldn’t be reflective of the general population, and many organizations have already collected extensive, reliable data on the subject. 

Related Work
Use this section to argue the uniqueness of your contribution
Relationship of your Project to the Themes discussed in the Course
Our contribution will be unique since we’re looking at the visual representation of energy use in all aspects; from appliances and cars to the efficacy of smart grids and overall energy use in a household.  After we look at the different aspects of energy use, from physical representations, competition/achievement systems, and personal motivation, we hope to have compiled a broader overall picture of energy use and to understand more deeply what representations are more effective and how these visualizations can interact to create a deeper understanding of energy use.
Our project relates to many of the themes discussed in class, specifically the classes on energy conservation and motivating behaviors in the consumers.

Characterization of the Individual Contributions
Matt is researching the physical representations aspect
Tyler and Michael are researching the competitive/achievement systems aspect
Terry and Jennifer are researching the personal motivations aspect

Findings and Results so far
We’ve found several interesting articles about the research in behavioral science to motivate a change in behavior.  Several claim that there is a distinct disconnect between people’s attitudes towards the environment and their own energy use.  Studies we’ve found have shown that people were more likely to make changes when those changes were easy to perform, when they had the skills necessary to change, when their neighbors or other members of their social groups were making similar changes, etc.  When combined with other technologies and programs, the data collected by advanced meters provide the oppurtinity to empower consumers to become better energy managers and reduce consumption.  Smart metering systems alone are not sufficient to change household energy consumption practices.

Further developments planned till the end of the semester
We plan to continue meeting every week to collaborate on our research and develop a conclusion about the best methods of representing energy use.  We are looking to combine all of our areas of research in order to design and present a representation or visualization that we believe is most effective.  

References
McMakin, Andrea, Malone, Elizabeth, and Lundgren, Regina.  “Motivating Residents to Conserve Energy without Financial Incentives.” Environment and Behavior Journal.  February 2002.
Todd, Annika. “Behavioral Science is the New Green: The Stanford Energy Reduction Initiative”. The Observer, May/June 2010.  

Karen Erhardt-Martinez, Kat A. Donnelly, & John A. Laitner.  "Advanced Metering Initiatives and Residential Feedback Programs: A Meta-Review for Household Electricity-Saving Oppurtunities."  ACEE Report #E105 June 2010

Karen Erhardt-Martinez.  "Policy Innovations and People: Active Participants in the Energy Revolution"  April 26th 2010

Karen Erhardt-Martinez. "Socially Rational Actors: Behavior Energy and Climate Change, Conference Insights for Market Transformations." April1, 2008

John A. Laitner & Karen Erhardt-Martinez.  Presentation: "Advanced Metering Initiatives and Residential Feedback Programs" September 14th, 2010