Presentation at 'Smart Demand' Workshop, iHeat 2012, 13th November 2012, Murray Edwards College, Buckingham House Conference Centre, Cambridge. (http://www.cir-strategy.com/events/heat/)

1. Smart Demand:
Lessons from Water
Dr Ben Anderson
b.anderson@soton.ac.uk
Sustainable Energy Research Group
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment

2. The Menu
 The problem(s) with water
 Water ‘practices’
 The problem with ‘demographics’
 Lessons from water
 Implications for smart energy
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3. The Menu
 The problem(s) with water
 Water ‘practices’
 The problem with ‘demographics’
 Lessons from water
 Implications for smart energy
Source: DEFRA, 2008
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4. The problem(s) with water…
Source: DEFRA, 2011
 Over abstraction With no action
 It costs to clean
– Energy (carbon)
 Supply
– Patchy (no grid)
– Locally variable
 Demand
– poorly understood
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5. What do we know?
 Domestic water demand is rising
 Mean daily consumption
– ~= 150 l/person/day
– ~= 140 l/person/day (2030)?
 More single households
– more total volume
Source: DEFRA, 2011
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6. What do we know?
 Domestic water demand is rising
 Mean daily consumption
– ~= 150 l/person/day
– ~= 140 l/person/day (2030)?
 More single households
– more total volume
 And
– Consumption = ƒ(occupancy)
– But look at the ranges!
Source: DEFRA, 2011
 But that’s about it… Source: ESRC Sustainable Practices Group Water
Survey, 2011
www.sprg.ac.uk
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7. Well… almost
 ‘Expected’ appliance use
– On average
 Actual appliance consumption
– Mean l/day
– For a few micro-measured
households
 So…
– Consumption = ƒ(occupancy) +
ƒ(appliances)
 But
Source: Shove & Medd, 2005
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8. The trouble with averages…
 5 ‘average’ households
– but they do different things
 So to reduce demand…
– What to target?
– Who to target?
– How to target them?
Source: Shove & Medd, 2005
 Now…
– Consumption = ƒ(occupancy * wpd) + ƒ(appliances * wpd)
– Where wpd = What People Do
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9. But what do people do?
 Does this tell us?
 Social practices
– Habits
– Routines
– Neither fully conscious nor reflective
– Constraints & inter-dependences
– “Why people don’t do what they ‘should’”
(Jim Skea, 2011)
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10. Washing practices
 2011 survey
– N = 1800
 “7 a week”
 7 showers + 1 bath
 Do washing
practices cluster?
Source: ESRC Sustainable Practices Group Water
Survey, 2011
www.sprg.ac.uk
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11. Washing practice clusters
 Dimensions Whole sample
– Frequency
– Diversity
– Technology
– Outsourcing
Source: ESRC Sustainable Practices Group Water
Survey, 2011
www.sprg.ac.uk
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12. Washing practice clusters
 Dimensions
– Frequency
– Diversity
– Technology
– Outsourcing
Source: ESRC Sustainable Practices Group Water
Survey, 2011
www.sprg.ac.uk
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13. Washing practice clusters
 Dimensions
– Frequency
– Diversity
– Technology
– Outsourcing
 Explain
– ~ 20% l/day variation Source: ESRC Sustainable Practices Group Water
Survey, 2011
www.sprg.ac.uk
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14. But…
 Cluster membership
– is not easy to predict
Low Attentious High Low Out and
Frequency Cleaning Frequency Frequency About
Showering Bathing Bathing
Age  
Number of children  
Household Composition  
Gender
Number of earners
Number of cars  
Accommodation
Tenure 
Environmental values  
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15. Lessons from water:
 Volume ~= ƒ(occupancy) + ε
– ‘Attitudes’ are not that relevant
 Appliances provide a substrate for…
– What people do - social practices
 Help to explain variation (ε)
• Across ‘similar’ households
• With similar appliances
• And similar accommodation
 Are habitual, routine & not fully conscious
nor reflective
• So difficult to change
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16. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
Source: A.S. Bahaj, P.A.B. James
(2007) “Urban energy generation: The
added value of photovoltaics in social
housing” Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews 11: 2121-2136
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17. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
Source: A.S. Bahaj, P.A.B. James
(2007) “Urban energy generation: The
added value of photovoltaics in social
housing” Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews 11: 2121-2136
17

18. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
Source: A.S. Bahaj, P.A.B. James
(2007) “Urban energy generation: The
added value of photovoltaics in social
housing” Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews 11: 2121-2136
18

19. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
H2 - low demand - little
potential for shifting?
Source: A.S. Bahaj, P.A.B. James
(2007) “Urban energy generation: The
added value of photovoltaics in social
housing” Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews 11: 2121-2136
19

20. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
H2 - low demand - little
potential for shifting?
H4 -high, peaky demand -
potential for shifting?
Source: A.S. Bahaj, P.A.B. James
(2007) “Urban energy generation: The
added value of photovoltaics in social
housing” Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews 11: 2121-2136
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21. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
 Smart Demand needs a handle on
– Habits, routines
– Barriers, constraints and flexibility
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22. Implications for Energy
 Hot water!
 You can eco-tech all you like
– But it’s what people do with it that matters
 Smart Demand needs a handle on
– Habits, routines
– Barriers, constraints and flexibility
– Networks of demand
 And ways of ‘auto-targeting’ interventions
– That don’t rely on ‘demographics’ + ‘values’
– A market of 1?
– Smart Monitoring?
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23. Thank you
 Dr Ben Anderson (b.anderson@soton.ac.uk)
 www.energy.soton.ac.uk
– SPRG
• Sustainable Practices Research Group
• www.sprg.ac.uk
– DANCER
• Digital Agent Networking for Customer Energy
Reduction (EPSRC)
• dancerproject.wordpress.com
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