The dynamics of energy demandWhat is energy used for and how does this change?

Elizabeth ShoveLancaster University

Sustainable Thermal Energy Management International Conference (SusTEM2015), July 7th – 8th, United Kingdom

Meeting CO2 emissions targets means reducing energy demand.

The research councils UK funded 6 “End use energy demand” centres: interpretations of demand vary across the centres.

• A consequence of the relative efficiency of ‘demand’ technologies (not supply)

• A consequence of population, income and some level of technological development/efficiency

• A ‘resource’ that energy providers can manipulate and mobilise , e.g. in managing load profiles through demand response or demand reduction – negawatts and negumption

• A more or less predictable ‘need’ which energy providers/technologies and infrastructures have to meet

For some, energy demand is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024854230USA 2005

Where does demand begin?

How do everyday practices evolve?

How much energy is ‘drawn’ through society?

Energy demand is an outcome of social practices

People do not use energy for its own sake

Energy demand is an outcome of what people do at home, at work and in moving around.

There are many practices that call for energy: heating, cooling, lighting, cooking, office working etc.

These are changing all the time. They have different histories and they change in different ways.

Energy demand reduction depends on the practices which draw energy through society.

Energy consumption and energy demand

Hughes: Networks of Power, 1983. The need for electricity is made one practice at a time.

Energy is never used in the abstract

Energy use is almost always mediated by some kind of technology

Such technologies (air conditioning systems, freezers, lights, cookers, electric grids) are also implicated in shaping what people do.

In shaping what people do, technologies and infrastructures are also implicated in the dynamics of energy demand.

Even ‘efficient’ technologies legitimise and sustain increasing demand: e.g. air conditioning, freezers, heating systems.

Technology and demand

Specific combinations of fuels and technologies co-constitute the practices of which society is made, and the material arrangements amidst which such practices transpire

Lighting technologies and lighting demand constitute each other: spots to spaces

Energy is part of accomplishing many social practices each of which have a history and a dynamic of their own.

Energy demand in the singular makes no sense

The dynamics of comfort

There is nothing natural about 22⁰C

Methods of investigating this relationship:

• Archive research in two UK towns from 1920-1990 – the design of specific council estates: Stocksbridge (built 1930s) Stevenage (Built 1950s-60s)

• Oral histories with people of different ages who have lived in those locations

• Questions focusing on the period when they were 25-35 years old.

In detail: how do infrastructures and practices co-evolve?

• How ‘normal’ provision evolves• How homes have been adapted and updated• How people have kept warm in winter – at different points in their lives, and in

the overall ‘life’ of their home.

Years discussed in detail Stocksbridge Stevenage

1940s Now aged 80, 90

1950s Now aged 90, 88, 65 Now aged 72

1960s Now aged 88, 80, 77, 65 Now aged 80, 76, 75, 72, 66

1970s Now aged 88, 77, 71, 70, 65, 58 Now aged 76, 72, 66, 62, 57

1980s Now aged 83, 71, 70, 66, 65, 58 Now aged 62, 62, 60, 60, 57

1990s Now aged 66, 58 Now aged 60, 44, 39

2000s Now aged 51, 38, 38

Some interviewees spoke about more than one decade

15 in total 11 in total

Who we spoke with

Central heating and that knocking it through and I think they did some work in the kitchen as well, making that bigger. - space

Upstairs was another worldOne coal fire: unheated bedrooms

New uses of spacePreviously separate rooms knocked through with the arrival of central heating

Many technologies of keeping warmEiderdowns and blankets, Pyjamas, no duvets, hot water bottles; plates heated in the oven to warm the bed, bed socks, electric blankets

Television and space heating: TV in front room

She had a fire like that, a plug in thing. Yeah she’d say ‘I’m not putting the [coal] fire on for you to just watch telly for an hour’ so not doing coal fire if we were just sitting there for half an hour.

A famous cup final it was Blackpool and Bolton, I’ll never forget that. That’s when got our first telly, so that’s when we started using theliving room, you only used it for parties and Christmas if that.

conjunctions of space, heat and TV

http://www.earlytelevision.org/british_experimental.html

1940sSolid fuel, coal, logs: one room heatedFire places in other rooms but not used other than illness or special eventCold or snug depending on location and time of day

1950sSolid fuel but Parkray stoves, plus radiator. Gas fire in second downstairs room.

1960sAs above but with ‘top up’ heaters: electric bars in the bathroom, paraffin heaters, convector heaters, electric blankets.

1960s-1970sMany combinations: parkray, parkray plus radiators, gas fire, gas fire plus radiators, storage heaters (especially in the hall)

1970s-1980sOpen grate replaced with gas central heating and radiator in every room, but not always used. Double glazing added. Duvets arrive from the Continent, blankets disappear. More rooms in use: reading in the bedroom, less clothing worn.

Heating creeps around the homeHeating matters for how homes are usedHeating matters for the details of daily lifeHeating systems are used in different ways

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up

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SPACE heating and heating SPACE

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Simplified house plans showing heated space over time

1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Each row represent one respondent’s experience

Coal fire Gas fireElectric fire

Gas hot air

Electric storage

Gas central heating

Other – e.g. paraffin

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190149/16_04-DECC-The_Future_of_Heating_Accessible-10.pdf

Future scenarios: heat pumps and district heating by 2050

Heat networks: total space heating at 22° C.

Heat pumps: background and top up heatingEither gas, electric, or solid fuel (wood).

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up

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Challenging or reproducing the model of full gas central heating and the ideal of 22⁰C

Future scenarios: somewhat different ways of living

Electric cooking

Showering

Washing up

Using laptop

home

server

wirelesss

Keeping warm

Electricity or wood, coexisting systems

clothes

Energy infrastructures, mediated by appliances, enable many practices at once - and depend on them.

The changing relation between infrastructures and appliancesLocal policies, international systems of provision, trade, diet

From built in larder to electric fridge: 1928 plans and from estate agents: 2014

Council responsibilityInfrastructure

No choice, part of the home.

Keeping food coolPolitics of provisionInfrastructure/appliance

Ambivalent infrastructureTenant/Council

Market competitionAppliances

Individual consumers

Tenant responsibility

Shell and core will comprise the structure, its cladding, its base plant, completed common areas and external works. More specifically it will generally include:

High and low voltage switchgear. Transformers. Lift systems. A standby generator. Boilers. Chillers. Cooling towers. Water and fuel tanks. Sprinkler plant. Building control systems. Air conditioning chambers and fans. Water and fuel pumps. Dry risers. Fire detection, alarm and hose reel systems

• Design to meet all needs.

• Everything else is taken out again when the tenant leaves

http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Shell_and_core#Normal_shell_and_core_provision_for_a_high-spec_city_office

http://www.propertyfinder.ae/en/commercial/office-space-for-rent-dubai-downtown-dubai-1902253.html?img/0

Politics of provision and the commercial organisation of energy demand

Basic provisionFitting out

6 year lease99 year lease

FixityFlexibility

Responsibility‘over sizing’Escalation

Standards and specifications

Politics of provision

Institutional arrangements and interests lie behind current specifications/standards.

These arrangements – and the energy demands that follow - could be different.

What are “normal” opportunities to consume energy and how do these change?

Present patterns of energy demand are not inevitable: they have been different in the past, they will be different in the future.

Infrastructures and technologies make and do not simply meet energy demand: they are part of constituting and sustaining social practices that draw energy through the system

There is a recursive relation between infrastructures and practices (home heating matters for what is done in the home and vice versa)

The institutional organisation of responsibility (council, owner, developer, tenant) matters for interpretations of ‘normal’ provision and for how this changes.

Rhythms of daily life and peak demand

UK

What are peaks made of?

sleeping sleeping

Data from the multi-national time use studies, 2000.

Finland

These graphs show what people are doing at different times of day.

They show that France is more ‘synchronised’ than Finland. Especially at lunchtime.

Such patterns matter for what happens when, and hence for peak demand.

Societal synchronisation

France

If energy consumption is an outcome of societal rhythms and dynamic patterns of practice, research and intervention relating to peak load should focus on time, timing and social practice

This is not a matter of individual choice and decision making.

Lunch time

Societal synchronisation and energy demand

Synchronisation high

Energy demand higherMany people doing the same energy-intensive activity at the same time

E.g. evening TV, dinner

Many people doing different energy-intensive activities at the same time

E.g. Morning peak; week-ends

Many people doing the same lower energy activity at the same time

E.g. sleeping

Many people doing different lower energy activities at the same time

E.g. Week-end troughs

Synchronisation low

Energy demand lower

Flexibility, sequences and change over time

Who does the laundry and when?

Already more at the weekend in 2005

Relation to other practices

Patterns of employment

Change over time: paid work through the day

Source:Gershuny, J (2011) Time-Use Surveys and the Measurement of National Well-Being, Centre for Time-use Research Department of Sociology University of Oxford(12 September 2011)

Multiple opportunities for policy intervention to reduce (and shift) energy demand

Internet, IT and the nature of work

Working hours and employment policies

Systems of provision and supply chains

The dynamics of energy demand depend on:

Public/private sector interfacesRules and standards (not of energy)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024854230USA 2005

A footnote: Questions of efficiency

Efficiency: makes more useful energy available for the same input – at every stage.

Efficiency: delivers the same service for less energy

Questions of efficiency

2CV in the 1950s: 64mpgThe C1 today similar mpg but with double the weight and double the top speed.

Would a modern engine in a 1950s 2CV be more efficient?

Would a 1950s 2CV count as a car today?

What is the reference point for judgements of efficiency?

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/06/citroen-2cv.html

Questions of efficiency

• obscure questions of service

• obscure the ways in which technologies constitute demand

• tend to have no history (what is the reference point?)

• isolate technologies – the freezer not the food system

Efficient technologies often help reproduce unsustainable patterns of demand

A+ energy rating

http://ao.com/product/rl4362fbasl-samsung-gseries-fridge-freezer-stainless-steel-27050-28.aspx

Many people thinkEnergy demand reduction depends on making technologies more efficient, and persuading people to adopt them.

HoweverTechnologies and infrastructures are implicated in making and reproducing services and practices.

Efficient technologies sustain social practices that call for high levels of energy demand.

DEMAND reductiondepends on reconfiguring services and social practices.

DEMAND reductiondepends on recognising that technologies and infrastructures do not simply meet existing needs: they shape future practices and the demands that follow.

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To finish

Many people think

However There are many areas of public policy that unknowingly impact on the range of social practices enacted in society, and hence on energy demand.

These include education, employment, business, health, planning and more.

DEMAND reductionDepends on understanding the unintended consequences that ‘non energy policies’ have on what people do, and hence on energy demand.

DEMAND reductionDepends on actively fostering new social arrangements and different ways of life.

The only policy relevant to energy demand reduction is energy policy.

Are about change and variation in energy demanding practices

How and why are specific energy demanding practices changing today?

How do such changes relate to infrastructures/technologies?

How do interpretations of normality and need evolve?

How is energy demand constituted, how does it change, how can it be steered?

The really big questions