Energy Demand Shifting in Residential Households: The Interdependence between Social Practices and Technology Design

Emerging energy technologies, such as smart meters and solar photovoltaic systems (solar PV), are changing our relationship to energy. There is increasing evidence that households with solar PV on their roof tend naturally to shift their energy consumption in time to match their local generation, but what do people actually do to achieve this and how ICT can support them to optimize their consumption? In this paper we present a year-long user study to understand social practices around laundry routines and local energy generation. We highlight four challenges for the next generation of home energy management systems