What’s the meaning of smart? Sociotechnical report

‘What’s the meaning of smart? A study of smart grids’ is  a report from a multidisciplinary study conducted by Nigel Hargreaves, Jason Chilvers and Tom Hargreaves. The report contends that to be smart, electricity grids have to not only be consistent with current infrastructures and other technologies in a technical sense, but also encourage engagement and adoption by end-users. A…

3S WP 2012-14 Hargreaves – Opening the black box of the household: Understanding how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors

Current models of the role of energy feedback in helping to reduce energy use, assume it fills an information deficit in individual energy consumers’ knowledge and thus encourages them, rationally, to reduce their consumption levels either to save money or the environment. Based on 15 semi? structured interviews with participants trialling a range of smart…

3S WP 2012-01 Hargreaves – Governing Energy Use at Home: Smart Meters, Governmentality and Resistance

This paper examines attempts to reduce household energy consumption through the introduction of real time display monitors (RTDs) that enable householders to ‘see’ their energy use (and its associated carbon emissions) and thus take steps to reduce it. Drawing on repeat semi-structured interviews, conducted 12-months apart, with 10 householders participating in a ‘Visible Energy Trial’…