Information Systems to Empower Individuals in Realizing the Energy Transition: Design, Engagement, and Impact

Our modern lifestyle is highly dependent upon energy supplied still primarily by fossil fuels, which cause environmental harm in the form of CO2 emissions. The increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, in turn, is the main driver of climate change and endangers the overall balance of our ecosystem. Climate experts agree that in order to prevent irreversible damage to our natural environment, it is of utmost urgency to reduce the carbon footprint of human activity. Two key levers have been identified in the residential sector, which accounts for roughly a quarter of worldwide energy demand, to reduce household-related CO2 emissions as part of the energy transition: 1) households can reduce their energy demand (e.g., by lowering the thermostat when nobody is at home, improving building insulation), and 2) can engage in energy generation through renewable energies (e.g., by installing a photovoltaic system on the roof). In fact, households (and homeowners in particular) play a key role in the diffusion of renewable energies: technological advancements at falling costs have made installing photovoltaic systems an increasingly attractive option for decarbonizing energy demand, both from the standpoint of economics and convenience. Homeowners thus become prosumers, both consuming and generating electricity, and tend to develop new needs around energy (e.g., sustainable production, being self-sufficient). For the vast majority of households, however, the topic of energy is still doesn’t seem particularly relevant in their everyday lives, and often individuals lack knowledge of effective means to contribute to the energy transition. Information systems can help to overcome these issues. By making energy data visible, these systems can draw attention to the topic and help individuals take concrete action. Such approaches are scalable to the general population at comparably low cost, at least from technical and economic perspectives, because most of the required hardware (smart meters, communication networks, smart phones etc.), which is the more expensive component compared to software, is already deployed in the field. Yet, in order to successfully contribute to climate change mitigation on a large scale, these technologies first need to prove their effectiveness in the real world. In that regard, researchers have explicitly called for studies that empirically evaluate the design and impact of such technologies. With respect to the repeatedly observed lack of user engagement in energy topics, real-world trials should also focus on the end users and their willingness to realize the energy transition. After all, in the context of household-related CO2 emissions, end users are the ones who must adopt these technologies (purchase and install them) and ideally use them in the long term. This thesis studies the design, user engagement, and impact of an exemplary technology a) for reducing residential energy consumption, and of another technology b) for diffusing renewable energies among the population. The first technology is a mature product in the domain of feedback interventions (i.e., providing information about one’s energy consumption): a shower meter. This technology yielded large energy conservation effects in previous studies, with participants reducing their energy use by 22%. In four follow-up studies with a few hundred participants each, this thesis provides insights into users’ motivations for using such technologies and into the user experience that the technology offers. Additionally, the thesis examines the attention users paid to different feedback elements integrated into the user interface of the technology, and empirically quantifies the impact of the individual elements on actual energy reduction. With a mean conservation effect of 18.4% in the most successful treatment, the thesis confirms the large conservation potential of the technology. More importantly, the findings indicate that small design choices may affect user behavior in considerably different ways: the mean conservation effect in the three treatment groups that had access to different feedback elements varied by 9.7 percentage points, or a factor of 2.1 between the treatments. Two of the four field experiments were carried out in Swiss and Dutch households; the other two in German hotels for which the thesis considers consumer behavior of more than 1,000 hotel guests. The second technology studied is an example of a peer-to-peer energy market that allows households to trade self-generated electricity directly with their neighbors. The thesis examines whether the concept of peer-to-peer energy markets meets newly evolving user needs around electricity and whether these markets could drive the adoption of renewable energies. To that end, the thesis first empirically identified user needs in focus groups with consumers and prosumers. Based on these, I designed and implemented a web application as the user interface of a peer-to-peer energy market. In an explorative field study with 37 households, the thesis empirically investigates user behavior in a peer-to-peer energy market, and thus represents one of the first studies worldwide that evaluates the topic in an empirical setting. The findings are threefold. First, the peer-to-peer energy market was well received among the users who were mainly early adopters of renewable energies, indicated by comparably high and stable usage activity of the web application throughout the course of the study (4.5 months). Second, users in the sample are heterogeneous; based on their engagement with the web application and their stated preferences, they can be categorized into those that want to set prices for peer-to-peer energy themselves (30%), those that prefer the system to define prices (35%), and non-users or non-respondents to surveys (35%). Third, while the long-term impact (e.g., on the diffusion of renewable energies) and scalability of the peer-to-peer energy market still need to be evaluated, the analysis of interviews with nine households suggests that peer-to-peer energy markets may increase the saliency of renewable energies and may promote load-shifting activities. With its six studies, the thesis provides real-world evidence of the impact of information systems on sustainable practices that the research community has been calling for. In that regard, the thesis shows that feedback interventions can effectively curb household energy demand and suggests that peer-to-peer energy markets increase the saliency of renewable energy, which in turn may foster its sustainable use (load-shifting was a central theme frequently raised by the participants in the interviews). Furthermore, based on the assumption that user engagement is a driver for impact on sustainability, the thesis also focuses on the users’ interactions with two exemplary technologies. By highlighting how small design changes to the user interfaces of information systems can have a considerable impact on both user behavior and user satisfaction, the findings emphasize the importance of conducting field research with real users and actual energy data, rather than relying on self-reported technology usage intentions or energy savings. Moreover, the thesis derives design guidelines for the visualization of energy data, which researchers and practitioners can take up in the development of future end-user energy products. To that end, the findings also generate insights into considerations users take into account when making decisions about whether to adopt or continue to use technologies. With all of that, the thesis presents effective and user-targeted means of contributing to the energy transition