Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Energy Procedia 61 (2014) 2797 – 2800
The 6th International Conference on Applied Energy – ICAE2014
Exploring the Perception for Demand Response among Residential Consumers Daniel Torstensson*, Fredrik Wallin
Future Energy Center Mälardalen University, P.O. Box 883,SE -721 34 Västerås, Sweden
Abstract Smart Grids are often seen as an enabler for an electricity market with increased benefits for both consumers and environment. From a system level perspective, many advantages could be achieved by implementing these innovative technologies. Furthermore, implementing smart metering could give consumers possibilities to obtain a better understanding of their own electricity consumption. The information could also help consumers to react on price signals by adjusting their consumption patterns. Increased knowledge usually increase awareness and could therefore be positive for energy efficiency activities. In order to investigate the potential for increased consumer participation in the electricity market with respect to demand-response and micro generation, a questionnaire was sent out to the households in the town Sala. The purpose of this paper is to describe the interest for demand response among households. Furthermore attitudes for demand response have been investigated.
© Published by Elsevier Ltd. This © 2014 2014The TheAuthors. Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICAE Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of ICAE2014
Keywords: Smart grids, Demand Side Management, Demand Response
1. Introducti on To obtain increased consumer participation, demand-response and energy efficiency measures, will be important for the future energy system. Demand-response actions are foreseen to be a cost-effective component to balance grids with large shares of intermittent electricity generation [1]. Therefore it is important to understand how and why consumers would be willing to contribute with their flexible loads in a future electricity market. As a co mplement to small and mediu m scale technical oriented * Corresponding author. Tel.: +46-21-101497; fax: +46-21-101480. E-mail address:
[email protected].
1876-6102 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of ICAE2014 doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2014.12.318
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demonstrators it is now important to bring new knowledge on a wider scale regarding the consumers’ flexib ility and their willingness to participate. In the research area of demand response, today many publications are mainly focusing on energy system and utility aspects [2]. Further, there are studies also reporting on the potential of demand response in the industrial sector [3]. Also in the household sector, there have been various studies that examine the potential for demand response, see for examp le [4] and also studies linked to demand response and development of smart electricity networks working with end-user preferences [5]. The consumer benefits of demand response is usually not discussed to the same extent, but there are interesting contributions also in this area [5] [6]. In [6] it is described how consumers are offered a 10% discount on the monthly electricity bill if part icipating in the New Zealand power company's ripple control program. However, there is still insufficient knowledge on households’ behavio ur and attitudes lin ked to demand response [6] wh ich finally affects the ability to develop c ustomized solutions increasing the potential for individual households. In order to improve conditions for decision making of both technical and policy related measures for demand response, new knowledge on consumers’ attitudes linked to demand response and electricity market developments is still needed. More specifically, the purpose of this study is to obtain a wider understanding of the consumers preferences related to demand response with the follo wing objectives: i) To increase knowledge of households ’ attitudes to demand response; ii) To explore what mot ivates consumers to participate in demand response. 2. Methodol ogy In order to survey the interest in demand response a questionnaire was sent out in February 2013 including 2095 residential consumers in a typical Swedish small town. The survey was carried out in the concession area of Sala Heby Energi Elnät AB which is the electricity distribution system operator (DSO) in the town Sala and its surrounding. The first sent out questionnaire was supplemented with one reminder and at a total average response rate of 25.5%. Other research studies report similar response rates when the survey includes more co mplex questions e.g. on electricity us e and consumer flexib ility. A study in New Zealand reports a response rate of 15.8% without any reminder, when investigating demand response related issues at 400 households [6]. Various methods have been developed and used over the years to study households ’ willingness to save energy, be more efficient and to partic ipate in d ifferent demand-side activities [7]. These methodologies have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to identifying end -users attitudes and behaviours in relation to energy. As the purpose of this study was to include a significant nu mber o f households to obtain a broader understanding of various households’ preferences on demand response the use of questionnaires was natural. In this context, it was important to stress that consumer attitudes and their behaviour to a certain extent could be linked to socio-economic factors as regards to educational level, household inco me, housing type, and their preferences on information technology integration etc. [8]. The survey used in this study was divided into four different categories: basic data on households; households’ attitudes to energy issues, households’ preferences towards demand response; and households’ preferences to energy informat ion and decision support. The demand response section of the questionnaire aimed to provide a more general understanding of consumers’ preferences regarding their willingness to participate in demand response. It also tried to identify specific conditions that would need to be fulfilled for this to consumers to realise demand response actions. As this was the prioritised focus area of the study, this section was quite extensive and also included several questions relating to the expected level of economic compensation in order to realise the demand response action
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3. Results and discussion The result fro m the survey, the responses can be analysed and further categorised in many ways. In this work the households are divided in those living in apartments with responses from those living in detached houses. Thereafter respondents’ housing situation and their attitudes related to both energy usage and more flexible usage were examined along with possible barriers as well as tools that could facilitate these actions. The analysis began by comparing the basic questions of respondents living in apart ments or houses. The majority of respondents are living in houses. This relates to the fact that houses have been equipped with mo re detailed energy metering systems i.e. Smart Meters, and have therefore been included in the study. It can be noted that occupants in houses on average have a higher monthly inco me than those living in apartments. Among the residents in houses 60% answered that they were interested in improving their energy habits, whereas the corresponding number in apart ment was 41%. In order to investigate the ma in reason that motivates households to be more efficient in their energy use, the respondents were asked to answer on a 7-point scale where 1 and 2 are considered as the only environ mental aspects, 6 and 7 as just price, and 3, 4 and 5 as a combination of price and environment. While price was by far the heaviest weighing factor for respondents living in houses, it was more evenly distributed between price and environmental d rivers for respondents in apartments. This difference in motivation for demand resp onse may influence on future services and feedback regard ing price - or environ mental signals for d ifferent households. In Table 1 consumers’ interest in demand response is shown. The question included information that consumers with a flexib le electricity usage could avoid high costs due to volatile electricity prices. Respondents could choose to answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘don't know’. A general high interest in demand response could be observed for both apartments and houses. The total number of households in apart ments that responded to the survey was 28 and for detached houses the number was 479. The results indicates a slightly higher interest among households in detached houses as compared to households in apartments, correspond well with the fact that they often have a relatively higher electricity use and costs. T able 1. Households’ interest to demand response . Ye s
No
Don’t know
Apartments
61%
18%
21%
Detached houses
69%
15%
16%
To increase the understanding of the levels of economic co mpensation that is needed in order to activate demand response a number of related questions to this were included. One of the questions were which amount that a household would like to save per month when being flexib le. Response options were ‘100 SEK/ month’, ‘250 SEK/ month’, ‘500 SEK/ month’, ‘1,000 SEK/ month’, ‘1,500 SEK/ month’, ‘2,500 SEK/ month’, ‘Not interested’ or ‘Don't know‘. A reasonable high share of the respondents, 24%, stated that they were willing to participate in demand response with reducing their electricity bill with no more than 250 SEK/ month. There were 17 % stating ‘Not interested’, in this case respondents in apart ments had a slightly lower interest. 4. Conclusions This study is based on the analysis of a large scale survey sent out to 2095 consumers l iving in a Swedish small town. The analysis considers different aspects of energy use focusing especially on demand response issues. It is important to understand that preferences among different consumers vary a
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lot and the relation between preferences, consumer groups and their various potential needs to be further explored before designing the demand response programs. The household shows a positive attitude towards participation in demand response in this study. It was clear that households that live in houses are generally more interested in demand response compared to those liv ing in apart ments. In order to better understand how these positive attitudes could be realized for a more flexib le electricity demand, the study pointed out that both economic and environmental incentives were important drivers . These could increase the possibility to realise demand response in different consumer groups. It was also noted that households living in apart ment where more concerned of the environmental effects co mpared to those households living in houses. This may influence how business models should be designed and adjusted when offered to different consumer groups. The study shows that relatively s mall economic co mpensation is required in order to realise demand response at almost 25% of the households. Hence the potential for demand response based on economic incentives seems promising. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the Swedish Energy Agency for the financial support under research grant 33707-1. We also want to acknowledge Sala Heby Energi Elnät AB for supporting the survey in Sala. References [1] Paulus, M., & Borggrefe, F. The potential of demand-side management in energy-intensive industries for electricity markets in Germany. Applied Energy, 2011;88(2), 432-441. [2] Faruqui, A., & Sergici, S. Household response to dynamic pricing of electricity: a survey of 15 experiments. Journal of Regulatory Economics, 2010;38(2), 193-225. [3] Eissa, M. M. Demand side management program evaluation based on industrial and commercial field data. Energy Policy, 2011;39(10), 5961-5969. [4] Matsukawa, I., Asano, H., Kakimoto, H. Household Response to Incentive Payment for Load Shifting: A Japanese T imeof-Day Electricity Pricing Experiment. The Energy Journal, 2000;21(1), 73-86 [5] Annala, S., Viljainen, S., & T uunanen, J. Demand Response from Residential Customers' Perspective. 9th International Conference on the European Energy Market (Eem), 2012. [6] Gyamfi, S., & Krumdieck, S. Price, environment and security: Exploring multi-modal motivation in voluntary residential peak demand response. Energy Policy, 2011;39(5), 2993-3004. [7] Abrahamse, W., Steg, L., Vlek, C., & Rothengatter, T. A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2005;25(3), 273-291. [8] Vassileva, I., Wallin, F., & Dahlquist, E. Analytical comparison between electricity consumption and behavioral characteristics of Swedish households in rented apartments. Applied Energy, 2012;90(1), 182-188.
Biography Daniel Torstensson received a Licentiate of Engineering at Royal Institute of Technology and a B.Sc in Economics at University of Karlstad. He has previously been involved in international energy regulation cooperation through work at Electricity Quality of Supply and Smart Grid T ask Force at Council of European Energy Regulators. Fredrik Wallin is working as a senior lecturer in energy engineering at Mälardalen University. His research concerns energy system analysis, demand response and development of the energy markets. A special interest has been the deployment of smart meters and its added-values, both from a consumer and DSO perspective.
