Abstract
Carbon emission is a prominent issue, and smart urban solutions have the technological capabilities to implement change. The technologies for creating smart energy systems already exist, some of which are currently under wide deployment globally. By investing in energy efficiency solutions (such as the smart meter), research shows that the end-user is able to not only save money, but also reduce their household’s carbon footprint. Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on the end-user, and adopting a quantitative analysis of the perception of 1365 homes concerning the smart gas meter installation. The focus is on linking end-user attributes (age, education, social class and employment status) with their opinion on reducing energy, saving money, changing home behaviour and lowering carbon emissions. The results show that there is a statistical significance between certain attributes of end-users and their consideration of smart meters for making beneficial changes. In particular, the investigation demonstrates that the employment status, age and social class of the homeowner have statistical significance on the end-users’ variance; particularly when interested in reducing their bill and changing their behaviour around the home.
Highlights
Our urban and residential areas have become far more technological and digitally revolutionised [1]
The quantitative investigation in this paper aims to contribute to the discussion by means of the following research empirical hypotheses; (1) H1: Certain end-user characteristics have a statistically significant impact on the consideration of using smart meters for reducing the energy bill; (2) H2: Age, social class, employment status and education can be statistically attributed to adopting smart meters due to concerns about the environment
(3) H3: Users within a particular age group, social class, education level or employment status are statistically interested in changing their home behaviour by using a smart meter; (4) H4: Certain end-user characteristics are linked to how individuals feel about using smart meters to save energy
Summary
Our urban and residential areas have become far more technological and digitally revolutionised [1]. Other less mainstream services, such as e-grocery, referring to the online ordering of produce being directly delivered to the customer [7] (the benefits of which were evident as a supply solution during the Covid-19 pandemic) and drone-based delivery for food products and parcels (direct from the supplier to the customer), are capable of improving delivery times and transforming the way distribution networks operate [8] Both of which are regularly documented in the media and pose urban logistical challenges for the future. Reducing the carbon footprint is not typically the sole benefit of installing a smart meter in the home, even though research shows that, in the UK, it would be possible to achieve an 11% reduction of the 2050 carbon emissions target if every household adopted energy efficiency technologies (e.g., a smart meter) [23]. (i) energy-free time, (ii) cooking efficiency, (iii) stop using standby, (iv) shorten showers and (v) the 10p challenge [23], to highlight the benefits of a smart meter and visualising the cost-saving changes on the IHD
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