Understanding consumer motivations for participating in a smart power system

Smarter power systems need consumers to engage willingly with a range of new service offers from power system interests to manage demand and shift and/or reduce demand peaks. This project will seek to understand what is needed to secure that engagement from domestic consumers. It will market test a range of potential smart services across two dimensions: (i) automated/passive vs user-controlled active services; and (ii) motivators based on financial rewards vs motivators based on non-financial rewards known to enhance wellbeing. In theory, the system might gain most 'smartness' from automated demand response services taken up by consumers in return for the modest financial value which that response creates for the system. This project will find out whether this holds true in practice for consumers and how consumers respond to different smart approaches based on different motivational rewards.