C-AWARE: Enabling Consumer Awareness of Carbon Footprint Through Mobile Service Innovation (Cambridge/Nottingham/Exeter)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: School of Computer Science
Abstract
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Publications
Alexa Spence (Author)
(2011)
Engaging with Energy Displays
Badinelli R
(2012)
Viable service systems and decision making in service management
in Journal of Service Management
Ben Bedwell (Author)
(2011)
C-Aware: Introduction to a Case-Study of Cross-Cultural Participatory Design of Persuasive Visualizations
Ben Bedwell (Author)
(2011)
Disrupting social order by exposing personal accountability for energy consumption
Caroline Leygue (Author)
(2011)
Communal Energy Displays: Incentives and Sanctions to Reduce Energy Use
Elsmore C
(2012)
Confidential carbon commuting
Irene Ng (Author)
(2012)
Value Creating Service Systems: A Transdisciplinary Research Agenda
Irene Ng (Co-Author)
(2012)
The Roles of Contextual Variety and Means Drivenness in Driving Continuing Use of Information Technology
James Colley (Author)
(2011)
Exploring energy monitoring in the wild
Ng I
(2012)
Value, Variety and Viability New Business Models for Co-Creation in Outcome-based Contracts
in International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology
| Description | We investigated the feasibility of a ubiquitous set of applications that could enhance consumer awareness of carbon footprint. Addressing three challenges: 1. The provision of applications that are compelling to users, that provide comprehensible information that make the consumers aware of the implications of their behaviour, and which can be delivered onto the projected ecosystem of deployed handsets; 2. Ensuring that privacy concerns are addressed: Mobile devices can be enabled to monitor and report a great deal of information about an individual's energy use, for example by interaction with smart meters or smart plugs in the home or office, or through location information supplied to inference engines. Some of this information is useful in the aggregate, e.g. for the optimisation of transport, but awareness of ones own behaviour necessarily involves processing, by some agent or application, information related to ones behaviour; and 3. Ensuring that a viable business model exists for those providing the infrastructure behind the applications: There will be a large volume of very small event descriptions, which will be passed between service providers and third party application providers with consumer and provider specific privacy constraints. |
| Exploitation Route | It is important to consider the underlying mechanisms of behavior chance at a psychological level - observed short changes in some contexts may not be sustainable or appropriate in others as shown by our work on counter intuitive results around shared commendation - this has lead the team to the follow on project C-Tech as the URL shown. |
| Sectors | Energy,Environment |
| URL | http://energyforchange.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Follow on research activity in understanding little studied complexities fo energy attribution in shared spaces - EPSRC funded CTech. Through UKERC in policy advice around correct framing in communications around energy savings. Ongoing activity wiring the Connected Digital Economy Catapult with energy sensors (within CTech). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
| Sector | Energy |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Creating the Energy for Change |
| Amount | £1,053,883 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/K002589/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2012 |
| End | 08/2017 |
| Description | Digital Economy 'New Economic Models' Network+ |
| Amount | £1,528,703 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/K003542/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2012 |
| End | 03/2015 |
| Description | E.ON AG |
| Amount | £200,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | SWITCH |
| Organisation | E ON |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 04/2012 |
| End | 03/2013 |
| Description | E.ON AG |
| Amount | £200,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | SWITCH |
| Organisation | E ON |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 04/2012 |
| End | 03/2013 |
| Description | Fine-grain electricity monitoring in Pathology Dept, Cambridge |
| Amount | £30,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2013 |
| End | 09/2013 |
| Description | Infrastructure contribution - The University of Nottingham |
| Amount | £500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2012 |
| End | 05/2012 |
| Description | International Initiative Grant on Smart Homes |
| Amount | £117,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | E ON |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 03/2012 |
| End | 12/2012 |
| Description | International Initiative Grant on Smart Homes |
| Amount | £117,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | E ON |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 03/2012 |
| End | 12/2012 |
| Description | Monitoring infrastructure of buildings |
| Amount | £25,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2011 |
| End | 12/2011 |
| Description | Scenarios for the development of smart grids in the UK |
| Amount | £499,435 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NE/J005975/1 |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2011 |
| End | 08/2013 |
| Description | Studentships from The University of Nottingham |
| Amount | £280,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2011 |
| End | 09/2014 |
| Description | Transforming the UK Energy System: Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability |
| Amount | £468,747 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NE/I006753/1 |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2011 |
| End | 12/2012 |
| Description | Aligned DTC student projects |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | DTC student projects have been aligned with the C-Aware project. Numerous projects have been aligned with C-Aware: - Jianhua Shao (a Horizon DTC student) undertook a 3-month internship with China Mobile in Beijing. - Jacob Chapman (a Horizon DTC student) has undertaken a practice-led project under Caroline Leygue?s supervision, investigating the monitoring of energy usage in the workplace and responsibility and social interactions around energy use. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Aligned student projects - Cambridge |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | At the University of Cambridge, two undergraduate group projects were undertaken on energy use ? one to provide visualisation of energy use in a data centre and one for cost/benefit monitoring of domestic refrigerators. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | China Mobile contributions |
| Organisation | China Mobile |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | China Mobile have given in-kind contributions totalling £77K, for hosting project workshops in China, travelling to the UK to attend project meetings and in providing 20 mobile phones for undertaking experiments. China Mobile also hosted Jianhua Shao's internship. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Horizon Internship |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Eryk Walczak, a recent graduate from Nottingham, studied the use of communal energy displays to inform users of their energy consumption and the possibility of introducing incentives and sanctions in order to reduce energy use. This internship resulted in a poster at the Digital Engagement 2011 poster. Eryk is now studying for a Masters in cognitive psychology at University College London. Eryk's internship was paid using Horizon's Partnership Resource funding. |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Horizon Partnership Resource |
| Organisation | Research Councils UK (RCUK) |
| Department | Horizon Institute (Horizon Hub grant) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Partnership Resource funding (£17K) from the Horizon Hub grant has been aligned with the work of C-Aware, with additional staffing time in the areas of psychology and HCI contributed. The Horizon Hub?s Smart Living project (an additional £197K) will continue beyond the time scale of C-Aware. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Title | Low Cost Electricity Monitor |
| Description | Providing energy use information to individual building occupants requires knowledge at a sufficiently fine level of granularity. Available technology is either expensive or closed (in the sense that it is difficult to get raw information from them.) The project developed electricity monitor prototypes. The latest is capable of measuring up 30 circuits simultaneously and is designed to be located next to distribution panel or consumer unit. The cost per circuit monitored is then dominated by the cost of the current transformer (e.g. £15) required to measure current on a circuit rather than the measurement processing storage and communication. Full description can be found at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/c-aware/mon32.html |
| Type Of Technology | Physical Model/Kit |
| Year Produced | 2012 |
| Impact | Prototypes are being used by research partners and in a deployment at the University of Cambridge |
| URL | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/c-aware/mon32.html |
| Description | Blue Peter Climate Change Special |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Prof Gillott appeared on the Blue Peter Climate Change Special (outreach approx. 370,000) to discuss wireless energy technology and energy monitoring. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Electric20 trial |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Energy deployments aligned to both TEDDI projects C-Aware and Desimax and the Horizon Hub-funded Smart Living project have engaged the public. In the Electric20 trial, electricity monitoring kits have been combined with additional computing technology to allow donation of domestic electricity consumption data to the Horizon cloud datastore from 28 homes. A variety of services were provided to feedback data to the households, and the impact of the feedback on everyday family life was observed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Personal energy information: opportunities and challenges |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Personal energy information: opportunities and challenges, Cambridge CleanTech:Smart Metering and Grids SIG (2012). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Public participant trials |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Surveys have assessed how people react to the need for monitoring of energy consumption. In a trial of students living in residential halls on campus, we looked at the effects of framing energy use on displays in terms of costs or carbon emissions. In another set of trials, participants sharing a property with others who have different energy consumption behaviours were surveyed, showing that the type of energy display could affect how people react towards those who use too much energy, and how much energy they intend to use in return. The total number of people surveyed for the C-Aware project is 1,500. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
| Description | The Joule Energy Monitoring Visualisation Tool |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | While this could be described as two outputs, a visualisation tool and a live repository of energy information, it appears to the user as a visualisation of energy consumption in the Gates Building at the University of Cambridge, This presents fine-grained information, for example down to the level of lighting or socket use on a given corridor. It allows the user to explore energy use by geography or function, so one can see e.g. how much energy is used on a corridor or how much is used on lighting for the whole building. The website is at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/meters/ A parallel but potentially much larger system is being implemented in the Pathology Department at the University |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |