Making Energy Costs Visible
by Alexa(Or, Making Hidden Costs Visible, Continued…)
“Turn off those lights, you’re wasting energy!”
Growing up, I did it cause my dad told me to, and I do it now because I know in the back of my head that running the lights must be costing me. But it’s hard not to be apathetic about it: The costs of household energy consumption, both to my wallet and the environment, are far too invisible to affect immediate decision-making and behavior.
Lucid Design Group recognized that a once-a-month energy bill isn’t enough to change behavior and developed the “Building Dashboard,” a system with a widget-like interface that aims to “translate consumption into everyday units that a non-technical audience can understand — dollars, lightbulbs, carbon dioxide.”
“It is difficult to motivate building occupants to take actions that conserve resources if they cannot easily sense and react to the implications of their decisions.
Research demonstrates that easily accessible feedback on resource use increases both awareness and motivation to act in ways that change attitudes, minimize resource use and save money.
A Building Dashboard™ display provides uniquely interpretable graphics for a non-technical audience and creates opportunities for active learning through feedback that are not otherwise available.”
It’s a great concept. Unfortunately it’s not something that I, the building resident and consumer, could set up and use — it’s something that must be implemented by a green-minded architect or building manager.
Now if only there were more services like this that could make such information available and accessible to the masses. Perhaps the energy companies could provide such a service? What kind of infrastructure does it take to implement designs for widespread behavioral change?
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on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Service Design, Sustainability.
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March 24th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
In The Netherlands enegery companies are experimenting with prepaid enegry usage counters. People have to pay the ahead of time and have to look regulary at it to see if they still have credit left. Especially for lower income families this seems to be really working and gives them incentive to use less engery, because the results are very directly visible.