An analysis of everyday life activities and their consequences for energy use

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the need for deeper knowledge about the relation between people’s daily activities and their electricity use and how to increase our knowledge through time use surveys and the visualization of aggregate activity patterns. To understand people’s energy consumption and how to improve energy efficiency or reduce demand during certain peak hours requires an understanding of households’ daily activity patterns. The activity patterns can be revealed when people keep time diaries, from which we analyze where, when, and for how long specific energy-related activities occur. In this chapter, we discuss how energy consumption varies in the course of the day and differs between people in different age groups. This has implications for how individuals should be approached and indicates that policies and advice should differ when directed to people in different life stages. By utilizing many time diaries from a population we can analyze differences in aggregate activity patterns. In Sweden, women, for example, use more electricity for activities related to cooking and household care than men do, which makes them the most relevant target group when it comes to giving feedback on how much electricity an appliance uses or on alternative ways of doing certain activities. Time diaries and visualization tools can also be useful as a reflective tool for the households when discussing their members’ various daily activities in relation to energy consumption. This can be used by energy advisors when targeting individual energy behavior.