Abstract
If in-home displays and other interventions are to successfully influence people’s energy consumption, they need to communicate about energy in terms that make sense to users. Here we explore householders’ perceptions of energy consumption, using a novel combination of card-sorting and clustering to reveal shared patterns in the way people think about domestic energy consumption. The data suggest that, when participants were asked to group appliances which they felt naturally ‘went together’, there are relatively few shared ideas about which appliances are conceptually related. To the extent participants agreed on which appliances belonged together, these groupings were based on activities (e.g., entertainment) and location within the home (e.g., kitchen); energy consumption was not an important factor in people’s categorisations. This suggests messages about behaviour change aimed at reducing energy consumption might better be tied to social practices than to consumption itself.
Highlights
How best to save energy is a prominent theme for research across a number of disciplines including architecture, economics, sociology, marketing, computer–human interaction and psychology
The outcome supported the same three-cluster solution as in the above analysis. Do these findings demonstrate the stability of the clusters revealed in the analysis, they show that comparable results are found with smaller sample sizes, affirming our decision to use a sample of 57 participants
The fact that a greater number of distinct clusters were not revealed during the analysis suggests that the participants do not hold consistent mental representations of which household appliances sit together
Summary
How best to save energy is a prominent theme for research across a number of disciplines including architecture, economics, sociology, marketing, computer–human interaction and psychology. This research is pressing because most energy generation produces carbon emissions, with associated environmental impact (e.g.,[1]). While high-level changes to the energy infrastructure and the decarbonisation of energy supply might be necessary to significantly reduce negative environmental impact [2], there is the potential for substantial carbon savings more quickly, and at lower cost, through behaviour change at the individual level. The domestic energy sector accounted for a third of the UK’s total energy demand in 2013 [3]. Whilst structural changes to a home, such as double glazing and insulation, can greatly increase building efficiency, the pooled effect of everyday householder behaviour can have a PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158949. Whilst structural changes to a home, such as double glazing and insulation, can greatly increase building efficiency, the pooled effect of everyday householder behaviour can have a PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158949 July 28, 2016
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