Shifting Electricity Demand with Smart Home Technologies – an Experimental Study on User Acceptance

Integrating high shares of renewable resources into the electricity system requires a more flexible demand, especially more load-shifting in residential households. In order to achieve that different technologies, especially smart meters with various feedback functions, are tested on the market. So far little is known about the effects of a combination of different smart home technologies, such as smart appliances and an automated energy management system, that go beyond of providing households with feedback regarding their energy demand. Using an experimental design, test-residents lived in a smart home on KIT’s campus for several weeks. The results confirm the importance of real-time feedback systems for shifting loads, but indicate that other smart home technologies are helpful to maintain convenience in everyday life. For future design of smart home technologies it can be concluded that they have to satisfy information needs, provide cost-saving potential, secure high levels of flexibility and enable an easy use in everyday life.