Energy Efficiency: Do You Know Your Prospective User?

Julia Kantorovitch

and Janne Laine

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Vuorimiehentie 3, Espoo, Finland

Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Smart Home, User Experience, Service Innovation.

Abstract: Smart homes are seen as an enabling technology and integrated part of future energy efficient system.

However, actual level of uptake of Smart home energy solutions is still low. New energy solutions must be

shown to be attractive and valuable before they will be accepted. To this end, the values and expectations of

prospective user must be understood better. Inspired by Design Science research, this paper presents a novel

method, found in synergy of scenario-based research, content analysing methods and user experience

mapping, which helps to assess if the vision for Smart home energy technology is widely coherent between

prospective users and industry.

1 INTRODUCTION

There have been significant technology

advancements in the recent years to enable new

disruptive solutions for the energy system, e.g. global

digital mapping/streetscape, digital analytics,

artificial intelligence and machine learning, etc.

Further to this, smart metering has recently

progressed through regulation, whilst storage, grid

investments and electric vehicles are generally

following economic incentives for profitability. In

parallel, the Internet of Things, cloud technology and

blockchain are fast becoming a common reality.

However, even with these technological

advancements, many industries are conservative and

risk-adverse because these technology advancements

are not adopted quick enough, preventing

advancement and acceleration. New solutions must

be shown to be attractive and valuable before radical

system changes and quantum-improvements will be

accepted.

Smart homes are seen as an enabling technology

and integrated part of future energy efficient system,

helping to optimise an overall demand response

towards flexibility in distributed generation, storage

and consumption of energy resources. Smart home

technologies are increasingly on sale across the

Europe, examples in Finland include smart home

platforms, solar panels with various installation

https://orcid.org/0000-1111-2222-3333

https://orcid.org/1111-2222-3333-4444

options included, intelligent automatic solutions to

control heating and water systems as well as

appliances and lighting, however, actual level of

uptake of smart home solutions is still low. According

to various market researches, the most significant

barriers to adoption include a lack of awareness about

available technology and its benefits, and also trust-

and the interoperability concern (Harms, 2015).

However, advertising and communicating benefits

alone may be insufficient to attract prospective users

of smart home energy technologies. Market players

such as energy providers, home platforms- and

individual solutions providers and consumers need to

collaborate to create awareness and in particular

common understanding about expectations towards

the smart home energy systems, their features and the

benefits of these systems. When solution providers

and retailers are marvelling at the passivity of

prospective users, latter are waiting for products that

match their values and expectations.

The new smart energy economy, thanks to

digitalization and novel technologies, causes utilities

and market participants to engage in a variety of new

relationships. These new relationships, ecosystems

and changing business models will be among the

important outcomes as the smart energy ecosystem

evolves. Such new business environment necessitates

the availability of data models and tools in place to

aid the capture of those opportunities as they arise.

Kantorovitch, J. and Laine, J.

Energy Efﬁciency: Do You Know Your Prospective User?.

DOI: 10.5220/0007771301990206

In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems (SMARTGREENS 2019), pages 199-206

ISBN: 978-989-758-373-5

199

These tools and data models needs to encompass

various viewpoints and in particular the quality and

consistency of the user experience and consumer

motives, which need to be understood well.

Inspired by Design Science research, the novel

method, found in synergy of scenario-based research,

content analysing methods and user experience

mapping, is proposed to understand better the

consistency between prospective users’ perceptions,

values and motives and respective industry view on

the smart home energy technology represented by

their marketing material. The findings presented by

this research aim at emphasising the importance of

user experience research to be taken not only into the

design of respective technology but also into its

appropriate service proposition and support.

2 PROPOSED APPROACH

This research utilises the Design Science research

paradigm in which questions relevant to a particular

problem in an application domain are answered via

experimenting and the creation of innovative

artefacts, thereby contributing with new knowledge to

the body of scientific evidence (Hevner et al., 2004;

Hevner, 2007; Peffers et al., 2007). Sometimes design

science research is also about potentiality i.e. the

identification of new opportunities to improve

practice before any problem is recognized (Iivari,

2007). Artefacts may be models, methods, constructs

and instantiations. In our case, the business domain is

a Smart home and energy-efficient systems and the

created artefact is a proposed research approach,

which is grounded on several scientifically

recognised methods namely content analysis,

scenario-based research and experience mapping,

which are described in the following.

2.1 Web Content Analysis

The web content provides a comprehensive picture

of how respective industry is representing the

benefits, functions and use of products and services

they offer.

Content analysis is a widely used method for

studying documents and other communication media

such as text in various formats, picture, audio and

video. The qualitative and quantitative statistical

methods can be used to analyse the meaning of the

content by systematically labelling of the content with

specific descriptors or “keyword concepts”

(Krippendorff, 2004). Content analysis is used in

many fields ranging from market and media studies

to social and political science and sentiment analysis.

The examples of applications in the energy domain

include content analyses of online marketing by green

electricity- and smart home technology providers

(Herbes and Ramme, 2014, Wilson et al., 2017).

Accordingly, marketing material and products

descriptions from companies active in smart home

and energy market in Finland were qualitatively

studied with a support of the content analysis process

presented in (Bengtsson, 2016). Materials have

included companies’ web pages describing their

products by text and pictures and videos accompanied

by spoken or by written text. The 15 companies with

profiles of energy providers, solution providers and

retailers have been sampled. Their marketing

material was targeted mostly at the prospective users

i.e. householders. Sampled materials describe the

main benefit of Smart home energy solutions as

helping householders to monitor and control their

energy use. Products are also commonly marketed as

a means of improving household comfort (e.g.,

keeping individually adjustable environment

conditions), or as a means of enhancing self-

sufficiency (e.g., using own solar generated

electricity in case of electricity failure). This provides

benefits to users through money savings,

convenience, efficiency as well as general enjoyment

by doing things in “your own way”. The solutions are

also described as an easy to install and to use, “make

sense choice”, though the availability of professional

help in installation of products is emphasised.

As a results of content analysis a major set of

concepts associated with a question of research

(perceptions, values and motives), which describes

the view of industry on Smart home energy products

has been established as represented below:

Increasing comfort Easy to use, easy to

install, effortless

Money saving

Trustable, Safe

Useful, sensible,

making sense

Exciting, Inspiring,

Do It Yourself

Increasing self-

sufficiency

2.2 Scenarios

In a next step, in order to obtain a respective view,

experiences and expectations of prospective users, the

scenarios in form of storylines were defined. The

storylines describing the functions of products were

based on the existing products’ description and

marketing material used in the content analysis.

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200

The educational, communication and exploratory

functions of scenarios have gained an importance in

recent years. Scenarios are consistent and coherent

descriptions of alternative real or hypothetical

features that reflect different perspectives on past,

present and future development which can serve for

action (Van Notten, 2003). It is recognised that

scenarios can be used also as a scholarly research

methodology to produce interesting research, for

generating new ideas and arguments and broadening

the range of causal relationships that we study

(Ramirez et al., 2015).

Consequently, the created storylines have been

used for the evaluation purpose but also as an aid to

identify new research needs and generate new

knowledge towards stimulating new empirical or

theoretical work, action research and possibly even to

creating an ‘aha’ moment. The scenarios contain the

descriptions of three products currently widely

offered in Finnish market, namely “Smart home

automation”, “Solar panels for rent” and “Solar

system to invest”. Further two more future “products”

in form of life-style descriptions have been defined to

mirror the existing developments led by smart energy

districts research (Monti et al., 2017). A Smart

Energy District is a new model for energy generation

and delivery particularly in a campus- like living style

environment. The future developments of such

aspects as energy prices, various alternative energy

sources availability, self-sufficiency in energy, global

climate agreements and socio- technical trends will

influence people’ personal values and motives for

using certain future technology. Consequently, these

will influence styles and ways of living in such

districts and communities. The created scenarios

containing the descriptions of respective products are

presented in the Appendix.

Next, the developed scenarios were evaluated

with a prospective users. To collect a quantitative

data set, the survey instrument was structured in

three parts. Part one contained questions to measure

prospective users’ perceptions of Smart home

energy products offered in the market and a future

trends outlined earlier. The question regarding each

product under evaluation is asked in a form “What

kind of impression do you get from the product or

service or trend described..?”. In addition, part two

of the survey contained an open-ended question

asking respondents to provide a few words "that first

come to mind when you think about ‘Smart home

energy technologies’?". Part three was designed to

measure the perceived benefits and risks associated

with respective products and trends. The survey was

implemented online leveraging the Questback

software, https://www.questback.com/.

In the final step, the experience mapping software

tool was used for the survey data analysis. The

experience mapping is based on the principal

component analysis of experimental quantitative data

and is discussed in the following.

2.3 Experience Map

The experience mapping, a central theme in this

research approach, is a user-centric in the sense that it

ultimately aims to analyse, describe and take into

product design experiences evoked by different kinds

of systems in terms of perceived attributes and mental

impressions associated with them, arising from

interaction (physical or virtual) with the system. The

attributes are of different levels, as illustrated in

Figure 1.

Figure 1: The experience mapping approach.

The attributes at the bottom level describe the

physical properties, technical specifications, or

creative design variables of the products and services

being analysed and designed.

The mid-level attributes describe the sensory

perceptions evoked by the products. Visual attributes

are relevant, for example, when analysing the effect

of paper properties on the perceptions and

experiences evoked by printed products such as

magazines. Such attributes are also important in

analysis of effect of material on the perception of

physical product. In this case it is essential to consider

the multisensory nature of perception and include also

haptic attributes such as roughness and slipperiness,

loudness and softness or aggregated touch and feel

attributes (Civille and Dus, 1990; Mensonen et al.,

2010).

At the highest level the attributes describe the

samples in terms of higher-level user experience

dimensions. This research focuses on this type of

perception. At this level products may be described in

Energy Efﬁciency: Do You Know Your Prospective User?

201

terms of cognitive appraisal dimensions such as

perceived trustworthiness, interestingness, or

usefulness; in terms of emotions and moods evoked

by the interaction with the product, or more simply by

the look and feel of the product; in terms of attributes

related to aesthetic appreciation; or in terms of other

kinds of mental impressions associated with the

product, such as softness, luxury, efficiency,

convenience, or affordability, for example. Attributes

may also be related to such aspects of user experience

as attractiveness, engagement, flow, or transportation

(Steffen, 2007).

The concept of the experience mapping, similar to

preference mapping methods commonly used in

consumer research and sensory science (Carroll,

1972; Meullenet et al., 2008), was initially designed

as a research tool for analysing those aspects of user

experiences of digital and print media products and

services that arise out of visual and multisensory

perception (Laine, 2018). Here the experience

mapping is extended to provide with data-driven

insights to support identifying trends and

understanding consumer groups and their motives for

targeted service innovation in the Smart home and

energy sector.

Once the relevant product-related attributes have

been measured by means such as psychometric

experiments or user questionnaires, the relationships

between the different attributes as well as different

products are analysed by means of multivariate

statistical data analysis and then visualized in a

diagram known as an experience map. More

specifically, principal component analysis is applied

to map the locations of the evaluated samples

(products, services, concepts, or scenarios) from the

high-dimensional space where each attribute

corresponds to a single dimension to a lower-

dimensional principal component space. Principal

components are linear combinations of the attributes,

such that the first principal component explains as

much of the variance between the multivariate

observations of the samples as possible, the second

principal component then explains the maximum

possible amount of the remaining variance in the data,

and so on.

The questionnaires applying Osgood’s (1952)

semantic differential scale are often been applied in

collecting such attribute assessment data. The

semantic differential rating scale is typically

presented as a line whose end points are anchored by

attributes that can be considered to be opposites of

one another, e.g. warm and cold, simple and complex,

and interesting and boring. Many usability

questionnaires employ such rating scales (e.g., Chin

et al., 1988; Hassenzahl et al. 2003, Schrepp et al.

2006, Hassenzahl 2010).

Figure 2 shows a sketch illustrating the basic

concept of the experience map. The horizontal and

vertical directions in the map correspond to the first

and second principal components, respectively.

Figure 2: The experience map diagram.

The product locations are denoted by red squares

(Sample A, B, etc.). The vectors of different lengths

and orientations originating from the origin of the

diagram correspond to different attributes

(cold/warm, interesting/boring). Attributes of

different levels are further distinguished by vectors of

different colors. The basic principle of interpreting

the map is that products located close to one another

evoked experiences that were relatively similar to one

another, while differing more from the experiences

evoked by products located farther apart in the map.

However, the numerical distances between the

samples on the map do not generally correspond to

perceived overall (dis)similarities between the

samples, but are only approximations. Attributes

whose vectors point in the direction of the given

products were generally more strongly associated

with those products than with other products. Further,

attribute vectors pointing in the same direction

indicate higher positive correlations between the

corresponding attributes, while attributes whose

vectors point in opposite directions were negatively

correlated in the data. Roughly perpendicular vectors

indicate low correlations between attributes or

uncorrelated attributes.

3 VALIDATION

Alignment between prospective users’ perceptions

and industry marketing is an important indication of

shared and consistent expectations for the Smart

home energy market (Wilson et al., 2017).

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As discussed earlier, the content analysis has

provided a systematic picture in form of extracted

concepts describing how industry is seeing and

representing the benefits and functionality of Smart

home energy products.

In order to obtain the correspondent view from

prospective users, the methodology described in

section 2.3 was followed. First, a set of experience

dimensions were formed. The dimensions were

based on the set of concepts resulted from the

content analysis described in section 2.1 (increasing

comfort, easy to use, safe/trustworthy, etc.). Next,

the respective attributes in form of opposites in a

scale of 1 to 7 were formed, such as, for example,

increases comfort (1) – doesn’t increase comfort (7),

easy to use (1) – difficult to use (7), etc. In addition

four more concepts were added, one to clarify a

general awareness of respondents about products

offered in the market and three others are to measure

respondents’ perceived interest in particular product

or trend in general and an associated impression

invoked by product such as if it is perceived trendy

or old-fashioned, luxurious or ordinary. These

additional attributes are not directly matched to the

concepts representing industry’ marketing material.

They are, however, interesting for the future

research, in particular in relation to the analysis of

life styles and sociological aspects of technology

use.

The quantitative assessment data were collected

using online questionnaires as described in section

2.2. The sample comprised n=42 respondents with

different professional background in the domains of

engineering, sociology, medicine and economy. The

age of respondents were in the range of 35-50

equally representing males and females. The results

of the analysis of respective concepts using

experience map tool are presented in Figure 3, where

the samples have been mapped from the original

high-dimensional attribute space to the plane of first

two principal components, as explained in section 2.

Here, the horizontal and vertical axes, not labelled

in the diagram to avoid clutter, correspond to the 1

and 2

principal components, respectively. The

attribute vectors were similarly mapped to this

principal component space based on their principal

component coefficients, i.e., their contribution the

and 2

principal components of the data set.

As an immediate observation, it can be seen that

products 2 and 3 evoked impressions that were

similar to one another, and in some ways opposite to

the impressions evoked by product 1. Both solar

panels-based products (2 and 3) were perceived as

more useful and making sense as well as saving

money than for example Smart home automation

system (1). Accordingly, users’ impressions or

experiences for the solar based products are better

aligned in these measures with industrial marketing.

It is interesting also to find, that in spite of that solar

technology is relatively new thing in Finland,

respondents are better aware of these types of

products compared to Smart home automation. On

the other hand, Smart home automation system is

perceived easier to use and more trustable compared

to other products. Moreover, the respondents see all

three products more difficult, old-fashioned and

ordinary than interesting, exciting and trendy, in

particular when compared to product/trend 5.

Furthermore, speaking about trends, “Age of

high-tech” community life-style (4) appeared to

invoke impressions that were rather similar to the

products existing in the market. On the other hand,

Do It Yourself & Smart scarcity way of living (5),

which emphasises immaterial values, practical

mind-set, do it yourself attitude and high

environmental standards found more interest in

respondents.

Figure 3: The experience of prospective users (1 – Smart

home automation; 2 – Solar panels for rent; 3 – Solar system

to invest; Styles: 4 – Age of high-tech; 5 – Do It Yourself

& Smart scarcity).

The comparative analysis resulted from

experience map has been complemented with

analysis of how prospective users perceive benefits

and risks of Smart home energy products.

As can be seen from Figure 4, respondents

perceive potential benefits of Smart home energy

technology to be rather general energy saving and

ecological reason than other benefits emphasised by

industry such as monitoring of energy use,

increasing comfort, money saving and property

value increase.

Energy Efﬁciency: Do You Know Your Prospective User?

203

Figure 4: The experienced benefits of Smart home energy

system.

Further, a majority of industrial marketing

material puts emphasis on easiness of installation,

availability of professional support and use of mobile

internet applications. However, the results of

quantitative analysis (see Figure 5) indicate that

prospective users more strongly perceive potential

risks in exactly those areas, - in the increasing

dependency on mobile phone and internet as well as

on a help of external experts including energy

providers.

Figure 5: The experienced risks of Smart home energy

system.

The initial analysis of feedback given by

respondents upon an open-ended question asking to

provide a few words about what first come to mind

when you think about ‘Smart home energy

technologies’ revealed, that ‘Smart home’ and ‘Home

Energy products and services’ are seen as rather

separate concepts invoking different rather

disconnected impressions. This is something that

needs to be followed further by product developers,

retailers and energy policy makers.

4 CONCLUSIONS

To achieve the necessary energy transition in smart

homes and cities, it is essential to increase energy

systems interoperability and to push energy

performance levels significantly beyond the levels of

current building norms. However, these

transformations cannot be made without the

prospective user at the centre of the approach. In

many instances, solutions are developed with a focus

on the environmental and economic impact, however

the social impact to/of the user is very often

overlooked or not given the level of importance it

requires. In order to identify the best solution, it is

first necessary to understand consumer decisions and

motives. It is thereby important to recognise that a

decision to integrate new technologies is not a

separate decision but connected to other decisions in

the home and influenced by many factors. For the

overall majority of the homeowners, energy

efficiency or even cost reduction is not a main reason

to integrate smart technologies, but other values can

be the key objectives.

This research presented an approach which help

to understand better if the vision for Smart home in

energy domain is widely coherent between

prospective users and industry. Shared visions and

expectation for risks and benefits of Smart home

energy solutions are important for reducing

uncertainties with development and penetration of

technological innovations. To validate a proposed

approach, the quantitative analysis of a survey data on

prospective users’ perceived experiences of Smart

home energy products and services and a web content

analysis of respective marketing material offered by

smart home and energy solution providers were

performed. There are however limitations to the

interpretation insights introduced by this validation

due to the limited number of respondents

participating in the initial validation survey (n= 42).

Consequently, in the future we plan to evaluate the

approach with larger group of participants.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research work has been supported by the

Government grants and the Finnish Academy of

Science.

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APPENDIX

The original scenarios evaluated with respondents

were defined in Finnish language (along with a

concepts and experience dimensions presented during

validation). The scenarios below is a translated

version created for a sake of clarity of discussions

presented in this publication.

Product 1 – Smart home automation

Nowadays, Smart home technology, as well as

measurable and controllable equipment can be

installed in old and new apartment buildings. You can

manage your home's functions with your computer or

smartphone from anywhere, for example, to check if

a home device is left un-switched when needed. In

addition, the lights and home appliances can be

switched off and on or the electric car can be pre-

charged remotely. The service follows the evolution

of the market price of electricity every hour, so in

addition to monitoring, residents can transfer

electricity use to less expensive hours. For example,

if it is possible to wash the laundry in the middle of

the day. After logging in to the online service of the

Smart home application, you will see the current

day's data on the consumption of electricity and hot

and cold water. With knowledge, residents have the

opportunity to better understand where to save. The

system is estimated to allow an average of 15% lower

electricity and water consumption per apartment.

Other benefits of the system include the construction

of additional functions and services over time. It

could be useful, for example, in elderly care: if the

coffee machine isn’t turned on at the usual time, the

caregiver can check to see if the resident has

everything right. The remote control service requires

measurement and control equipment for electrical

equipment installed in the house. The cost of the

Energy Efﬁciency: Do You Know Your Prospective User?

205

solution is between EUR 2 000 and EUR 3 000 per

apartment.

Product 2 - Solar panels for rent

An individual can now produce electricity without

having to build a system of its own. You can rent your

own nameplate from the solar power station. In

practice, renting is done online by clicking on the

solar panel map. The price is about 4-4.5 € / KK. Your

panel produces electricity all year round, including

on sunny winter days. You can keep track of the

production of power plants on the web, even with a

mobile phone or tablet. In addition, you can compare

your solar panel production to your own electricity

consumption. The electricity generated by your solar

panel is credited to the electricity bill according to

the stock price. Production varies by season. The

average payback is about € 1 per month. On average,

the output of a single solar panel is 230 kilowatt-

hours per year, which is enough for running, for

example, 230 washing machines or a 163-day

television marathon.

Product 3 – Solar panel package to invest

In addition, residents have the option of acquiring a

solar panel. Energy companies offer solar panels of

various sizes that make it easy to produce solar

power. Solar packages include a photovoltaic system

and electric storage. When buying a package, the

companies guarantee the right length and width of the

panel for your roof. The package also includes an

electric storage facility that will help the small

producer gain more. For example, it can be used to

store electricity and use it later in the evening when

the sun is no longer shining. Through the electric

storage, you can monitor the use and consumption of

electricity. Electricity storage can save you at the

time of trouble if you hit a power outage. Depending

on the size of the house and the number of panels, the

package price is on average 400 € per month.

Smart Energy Communities – year 2030

There is strong public demand to reduce greenhouse

gas emissions and global warming. It is well noticed

that renewable electricity generation maintains a

steady pace of growth. When new districts are built,

the builder designs energy production of a district

tailored to this specific area and regulations. If the

area is suitable for wind or solar energy, they are

chosen. Wood and biogas if found is also an option in

the area. This results in forming of smart energy

communities around cities and in rural areas.

Communities are well connected to each other and

cooperate in various ways around energy and food

production and consumption.

Product 4 - Age of high-tech

Local solutions using renewable energy sources are

becoming widespread with local ownership and

commercial services for maintenance and operation.

Electricity consumers enthusiastically limit their

energy use and generate their own energy. As the

energy production became locally owned by the

members of the community, a new sense of

connectedness emerged. The culture of energy

efficiency as a status values emerges from energy-

smart technologies. This includes fuel-cell-powered

sports cars, home automation and personal

electronics along with certificates of the energy and

resources used for their production. A whole new

level of technology and product development is

reached with this new willingness to pay. The culture

of consumerism gives way to culture of valuing smart

innovation and new cultures and communities. Novel

technology made mobile electronics and gadgets

energy independent by enabling them to harvest

power from their surroundings. High-tech countries

and companies thrive.

Product 5 – Do It Your Self & Smart Scarcity

Immaterial values have gain more emphasis in

steering technological, economic and social

developments. Communities are densely built with

lots of shared public spaces. Lifestyles are localised.

Travelling long distances is rare. Shared electricity

cars is a way to go. Within communities, smart

scarcity is the driving principle. Everything is

recycled with almost zero-waste. Solar panels,

windmills parks and other means of renewable energy

harvesting provide communities with plenty of

energy. Food is produced and consumed locally and

according to seasons. The world is built bottom-up in

a ‘do it yourself’ manner. Engineering skills and a

practical mind-set are highly valued. ‘Do it yourself’

people are communal nomads who constantly

develop new projects while helping others. Together,

people innovate, get feedback and achieve

increasingly high environmental standards in the

spirit and the philosophy of continuous improvement.

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