Projects

Ctech is a multidisciplinary project investigating ways of dividing up and representing energy use in the workplace so as to motivate occupants to save energy.

WP1: Taking ownership – Identifying who is using energy, how to assign responsibility and feed back information to users.

=> Technical data assessment and design workshops.

WP2: Putting it together – Considers different ways of combining data and how to put it in context within the building, existing routines and motivations that people have for using and saving energy.

=> Ethnography, prototype development and psychological studies.

WP3: People power – Focused on changing user’s behaviour collectively. Will examine how people interact around energy goals and cooperate to achieve energy savings.

=> Psychological studies and interdisciplinary applied theme days in partner sites.

Findings will inform technical, design and policy recommendations for energy monitoring in workplaces and other shared spaces. We will also develop a tool kit to disseminate to interested organisations comprising key learnings and prototypes developed.

Goulden, M., Bedwell, B., Rennick-Egglestone, S., Rodden, T. & Spence, A. (2014). Smart grids, smart users? The role of the user in demand side management. Energy Research and Social Science, 2, 21-29. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2014.04.008

Spence, A., Leygue, C., Bedwell, B. and O’Malley (2014). Engaging with energy reduction: Does a climate change frame have the potential for achieving broader sustainable behaviour? Journal of Environmental Psychology. 38, 17-28.

Leygue, C., Skatova, A., Spence, A., Ferguson, E. and Bedwell, B. (September, 2013). Communal energy displays: How do people react to energy sharing and free riding. Paper Presentation at Environmental Psychology Conference, Magdeburg, Germany.

Colley, J. A., Bedwell, B., Crabtree, A. and Rodden, T. (2013). Exploring Reactions to Widespread Energy Monitoring. Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT, 8120, 91-108.