DEHEMS: A user-driven domestic energy monitoring system

Abstract

Persuasive energy monitoring technology has the potential to inspire sustainable energy lifestyles within the home. However, to effect positive ecological behaviour change, a more user-driven approach is needed for the development of the technology, where the design needs to be accompanied by study on user behaviours and motivations, and the prototype deployed and tested on large sample sizes to understand user preferences. We present DEHEMS, a wide-scale energy monitoring system that undergoes three cycles of design, development and usability assessment so that it can help facilitate energy literacy and environmental awareness based on user preferences. Through real-world deployment, survey and focus group studies carried out in the UK, we present motivations and constraints for saving energy, user assessment of the DEHEMS pilot system and identify some critical user expectations and concerns. We describe how the usability analysis is then incorporated into the design of the next generation DEHEMS system and demonstrate that the resulting system achieves 8% reduction in energy consumption within the first week of feedback.