Context and background: Institutions already intervene to shape patterns of energy demand. But current demand-side management (DSM) strategies tend to work in the background with the aim of minimising disruption to services. A more significant challenge is to exploit opportunities for adapting socio-temporal rhythms to better match peaks and troughs of renewable supply.
Aim: This project analyses DSM interventions in practice, doing so as a means of identifying institutional flexibilities and new opportunities for more extensive demand side response.
Questions and methods:
a) How can demand be managed flexibly within institutions?
We will examine the impact of existing DSM strategies, focusing on their limits and possibilities, and how they shape and reflect the institutional timing and organisation of services. We will select 5 example case study institutions (e.g. hospitals, hotels, retail, transport networks) and analyse energy/travel data and local building management systems data alongside interview data (n.15) with key stakeholders. The aim is to analyse critical peaks and patterns in energy use as a way of identifying potential institutional rhythms that might be shifted as a method of demand-side response.
b) What forms of time dependence hold institutional rhythms in place?
We will disaggregate practices and sequences at peak and high-price times and separate ‘background’ energy use (e.g. heating, cooling, lighting) to isolate different forms of demand and develop a typology of temporal dependencies (that include periodicity, tempo, duration, synchronisation, and coordination). This will involve interviews (n.30) with people who have influence over the time-dependency of activities.
c) Can institutional rhythms be modified to change the timing of demand?
We will revisit institutions and managers interviewed to discuss revealed dependencies and opportunities for reconfiguring services to improve demand management. We will focus on institutional configurations that demonstrate the maximum potential of institutional practice-energy-time mapping. The potential for developing a new style of demand side
management will be disseminated to DSM and energy suppliers as well to a broad range of institutions through case study reports and national dissemination events.
Outputs: new methods of institutional practice-energy-time profile mapping, 10 practice-energy-time profiles, 2 journal articles, reports for case study institutions, 2 dissemination events.
July 2020 – June 2022.