Deep conservation in urban India and its implications for the design of conservation technologies

Abstract

Rapid depletion of fossil fuels and water resources has become an international problem. Urban residential households are among the primary consumers of resources and are deeply affected by resource shortages. Despite the global nature of these problems, most of the solutions being developed to address these issues are based on studies done in the developed world. We present a study of energy, water and fuel conservation practices in urban India. Our study highlights a culture of deep conservation and the results raise questions about the viability of typical solutions such as home energy monitors. We identify new opportunities for design such as point-of-use feedback technologies, modular solutions, distributed energy storage, harnessing by-products and automated load shifting.