When Space Heating Becomes Digitalized: Investigating Competencies for Controlling Smart Home Technology in the Energy-Efficient Home

Simon Peter Aslak Kondrup Larsen,Kirsten Gram-Hanssen

doi:10.3390/su12156031

Abstract

In the near future, renewable energy sources (RES) will make up an increasing share of energy production in the district heating grid, implying that utilities must enable energy flexibility in order to compensate for the intermittent nature of RES. Current initiatives rely on smart approaches, encouraging a flexible energy demand by integrating various demand-side-management technologies. While praised for their ‘smart’ capabilities, smart home technologies have also been criticized for not meeting their potential in terms of savings and flexibility. This paper examines space-heating practices in everyday life in 16 Danish households. The study relies on qualitative in-depth interviews and ‘show and tell’ tours within these homes. Results show how space-heating practices are reconfigured by embodied knowledge related to respectively space-heating and use of smart technology. This implies that occupants’ adaption to smart home technology is reconfigured by their previous experiences as well as the meanings they ascribed to their practices. By showing the different ways in which occupants ‘get to know’ smart home technology, results highlight forms of embodied knowledge which occupants habitually draw on when they heat their homes. Occupants learn and carry competences for conducting space heating throughout life, and interventions aimed at enabling a flexible energy demand need to consider this. As smart home technology is integrated in homes, interventions should consider embodied knowledge as part of occupants’ competences for controlling smart home technology, as this will impact the reconfiguration of (new) space heating practices.

Highlights

Residential energy consumption represents one-third of final energy consumption in Denmark, and, with heating making up 84% of that share, it remains an important area of interest in the transition to a low-carbon future [1]
Each ethnographic vignette provides a different approach towards engagement with smart home technology, showcasing how space heating competencies reconfigures space heating practices
Some households exhibit greater ease in performing space heating practices using smart home technology

Summary

Introduction

Residential energy consumption represents one-third of final energy consumption in Denmark, and, with heating making up 84% of that share, it remains an important area of interest in the transition to a low-carbon future [1]. More than 60% of the Danish housing stock is supplied by the district heating network, making this system a key point of interest for the low-carbon transition. Reaching the planned 100% renewable energy system in Denmark will require high integration of the electric grid and district heating network, allowing surplus electricity from renewable energy, primarily wind power, to be used in the district heating system, e.g., through large heat pumps. Within both the electric grid and district heating system, flexibility in demand will become ever more important. Several experiments and research studies have been done related to shifting demand within the electric grid [2,3], whereas flexibility in district heating is less developed and researched [4], Sustainability 2020, 12, 6031; doi:10.3390/su12156031 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion