Power and Energy Visualisation in the Home

Abstract

This thesis explores ways of improving the ability for households to manage their consumption of electricity, in the context of increasing concerns regarding global warming, and ever-growing demands for electricity. The thesis first explores the understanding of power and energy concepts and relationships, to establish whether poor understanding of these concepts affects people’s ability to be aware of and manage their consumption. It then, given that being informed is an important contributor to awareness, proceeds to explore the effectiveness of two different styles of energy visualisation in the home: numerical detail, and a more abstract representation.

The results demonstrated that participants had a limited understanding of the relationship between the power and energy. The statistical relationship between participants’ understanding and their ability to manage energy consumption in their home was a positive weak correlation. Participants believed that the abstract representation was more useful and clear than the numerical representation in visualizing home energy consumption in both studies. In representing power consumption in home, using an abstract meter was better than using a digital visualization meter because of the clarity of representation and attractive display.