Human-centered determinants of price and incentive-based residential demand response in Ottawa, Canada

Abstract

Considerable evidence suggests that residential demand response enables demand-side flexibility, lowering average electric procurement costs and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the operation of peak power plants. However, the effectiveness of such demand management is contingent on behavioral interventions that attenuate energy saving at the residential level, highlighting the need to better understand the human dimension of residential electricity curtailment. This study examines the influence of interpersonal, socio-economic characteristics and environmental awareness of households in Ottawa on their willingness to participate in demand response programs. Time of use, real-time pricing, critical peak pricing, and direct load control were considered potential candidates for adoption. Furthermore, the authors propose and investigate the willingness of people to receive non-electricity-related information on their in-home displays and participate in an altruistic peer-to-peer energy platform that was conceptualized and designed by the authors. The results suggest that the corporate social and environmental responsibility of electricity providers and the environmental awareness of respondents, as well as their perceived level of indoor comfort, all influence the effectiveness of demand response. The findings also indicate that philanthropic-oriented and information-driven incentives can potentially increase energy curtailment amongst households with a high prosocial responsibility.

Appendices

Appendix 1. Household questionnaire survey

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Table 9 List of questions included in the household questionnaire survey.

Table 10

Table 10 The (translated) list of questions included in the household questionnaire survey

Appendix 2. Consolidation of findings through expert interviews

In light of the small sample size acquired in this study (n ≈ 150), expert interviews were also conducted to consolidate the findings identified through the questionnaire survey. The methodology utilized to analyze the transcripts acquired through these interviews was based on the Grounded Delphi Method (GDM) which amalgamates the theoretical principles of Delphi Method and Grounded Theory (Päivärinta et al., 2011).

The first stage of GDM called for the identification of experts in the field of smart grid/DR. At first, 60 experts were identified through literature review, spanning three sectors (academia, industry, government). From these candidates, 15 experts agreed to be interviewed (6 academics, 3 government officials, 4 utility operators, and 2 individuals who worked for both academia and the government). The second stage involved the reformulation of the constructs presented in the household questionnaire in the form of semi-structured interview questions that would be presented to the experts. The third stage was comprised of the collection of primary data through in-person interviews and digital meetings that took place between August 7th and August 26th, 2019. During these interviews, the experts were asked to share their opinion on the factors that drive/inhibit the adoption of residential DR in Ontario. A sample of these questions is provided in Table 11.

Table 11 A non-exhaustive sample of the semi-structured interview questions

The fourth stage was centered around the analysis of the transcripts acquired through the interviews. First, each transcript was separated into numerous individual remarks, before being grouped together into similar beliefs and utterances. Then, these grouped remarks would be further narrowed down into groups and sub-categories.

The findings provided by the expert interviews reaffirm the hypothesis of the authors that the human-centered factors that drive residential DR forward in Canada have not received much attention in contemporary literature. More specifically, one respondent highlighted that DR studies in Canada are technically oriented and thus focus on solutions involving methods of increasing energy efficiency or the “secure handling, and distribution of private information acquired through IHDs.” According to two respondents, in part, this failure to capture the qualitative factors that drive DR forward stems from the “energy providers’ lack of expertise in non-traditional customer-oriented tasks such as education and channel management.” The intrusive nature of some of these programs (e.g., DLC or RTP) was highlighted as a potential barrier by the majority of the experts, with one respondent emphasizing that “these [DR programs] are generally perceived as gratuitously meddling, and the whole concept is exacerbated by the [fast] rate of which these were introduced to them.” As per two respondents, this is particularly true when their implementation is not counterbalanced by the provision tariffs that are “conducive to households’ participation in DR programs.” In contrast, a consensus was reached amongst participants that ownership of smart appliances and the reputation of Canadian electricity providers could play an important role in the successful penetration of residential DR. As such, efforts to simplify the design of DR should be made, in conjunction with the transparent dissemination of information to prospective end-users.

Lastly, the respondents were also asked to express their opinion on the potential of the philanthropy-based program proposed in this study and the addition of extra information in the IHD of households. A number of respondents (10 out of 15) agreed that these programs could, in part, help poor households meet their daily needs, but expressed skepticism on their overall applicability, particularly because Canadian homes are heated using natural gas and not electricity (thus limiting the overall potential of such electricity-based programs). With respect to the information provided on the IHD of households, a consensus was reached in that emergency-related information could be useful in the face of snowstorms and other extreme weather events.