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The COVID-19 pandemic has had drastic effects on the way we live. With the sudden shift to the home office, a shift in electricity consumption has also taken place between the residential, public, industrial and commercial sectors. Understanding these changes is crucial for a sustainable energy transition, as these changes affect the load and flexibility to adapt. In this study, we quantify the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has led to shifts in the electricity consumption patterns. Based on data from around 10,000 smart electricity meters in Stockholm, Sweden, we built a spatio-temporal multivariate regression model at postal code level to predict what the total electricity consumption during the pandemic would have looked like if there were no pandemic, allowing for quantification of the effect of the pandemic as the difference between the predicted and actual consumption, adjusted for differences in temperature. Results of 10-fold cross-validation showed good accuracy with a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of around 5%, with slight variations for season and consumer sectors. The prediction maps allow us to find clusters where electricity consumption changes are highest, showing where changes in the local electricity infrastructure may be needed in the future.

To enable and cope with an increase of intermittent electricity generation, the power industry and regulators are trying to incentivise users to use electricity at certain times through dynamic pricing and feedback. The effects of such interventions on patterns of electricity use have been extensively studied, yet little is known about how and why householders do or do not respond to such interventions. Using interviews and activity-based diaries, this study provides a qualitative exploration of how and why householders who are subject to a demand-based time-of-use distribution tariff, real-time retail pricing and real-time feedback, do or do not respond to such interventions in their daily lives. We find that the householders have adapted a range of existing practices and have started to engage in new ones that aim to reduce peak demand during peak hours, partly without the support of feedback. Drawing on theories of practice, we challenge common preconceptions about how and why price signals work by demonstrating how the size of the financial incentive that a price signal provides does not have that much influence on householders’ willingness to engage in demand response. We argue that price signals work by providing new meanings to practices that use electricity, that feedback can mediate these meanings, and that what matters for householders’ willingness to engage in demand response is that the changes they undertake do not cause them any inconvenience by limiting the temporal flexibility of other doings in their daily lives.

•Multilinear regression model for forecasting electricity consumption patterns.•Increase in total electricity consumption related to COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden.•Working from home causes a shift in electricity consumption to the residential sector.•Customers in residential sector have low consumption but highest cumulative effect.

Household energy consumption can be curbed by individuals’ energy saving, yet despite many efforts, our energy consumption is not lowering. This study investigated the role of a common set of behavioural determinants for households’ intention to perform four energy-related behaviours: investing in PV cells, turning off apparatus on standby mode, showering less, and replacing old home appliances with new energy-efficient ones. Behavioural determinants—energy awareness, general energy knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and moral norms—were assessed in a survey (N= 83) among Swedish residents. Energy awareness was moderately correlated with energy knowledge, but not with respondents’ intentions to perform the behaviours, except for replacing home appliances. Moral norms were judged by respondents as important motivators and were a strong predictor to behavioural intentions to perform all four behaviours. Attitudes likewise were assessed as important motivators and were important predictors to all behavioural intentions except investing in PV cells, which was instead predicted by perceived behavioural control. Respondents’ assessment of beliefs underlying attitudes also differed for investing in PV cells; namely, beliefs about economic benefits were lower. Moreover, respondents felt less morally responsible for investing in PV cells. Concluding, we found no evidence that intentions to engage in four energy-saving behaviours are mediated by general energy knowledge or energy awareness. Determinants to each behaviour differed, where—surprisingly—investment in PV cells stood out as less motivated both by economic incentives and moral concerns, although moral norms were shared motivators across all four behaviours. We discuss different possible interpretations of these findings.

Demand response refers to changes in power consumption by electricity users in response to certain conditions on the electricity market. Anticipated to play a major role in the energy transition, demand response is conventionally exercised through network tariffs, which serve as a medium for price signals intended to incentivize and guide electricity users on how to best behave. Considerable attention has been devoted to the unresolved question of whether users are willingto respond to these signals, a question premised on the implicit assumption of cognizant users making informed decisions. Less attention has been dedicated to evaluating the validity of this assumption, and the extent to which users actually internalizethese signals prior to making any decision on how to respond. This study posits that prior to making an informed decision on how to act, an electricity user must first “qualify” through meeting a set of preconditions. These preconditions are captured by a proposed three-stage framework that involves i) receiving the price signal (being aware of the tariff), ii) processing the price signal (comprehending its features) and iii) assimilating the price signal (understanding how behavior influences costs). Evaluating this framework using a survey, the study finds that only 3.8–8.5 % of respondents clear all three stages. This minority is substantially more likely to contain older villa-residents, who are comparatively more concerned with their costs and read their bills more frequently. The findings of this study demonstrate that the “audience” of tariff-based price signals are a small fraction of what is commonly supposed, and that research and policy should shift from a dominant focus on the magnitude of these price signals, towards alternative or improved strategies for communication and engagement.

When households invest in photovoltaics, they change from being electricity consumers to solar prosumers, a change that is often implied to also positively affect other pro-environmental behaviours. This article presents a comparison between Swedish consumers and prosumers (N = 460), concerning (i) whether consumers and prosumers engage in pro-environmental behaviours for different reasons, and (ii) whether prosumers and consumers differ in their intention to engage in these behaviours and if they find the reasons for doing so differentially motivating. Early and late prosumers are moreover compared to see whether time of investment influenced the reasons to engage in pro-environmental behaviours. The data show that both consumers and prosumers engaged in pro-environmental behaviours for the same reasons: convictions that behaviours contribute to the environment and one's life-quality. Moreover, both prosumers and consumers were more inclined to engage in pro-environmental behaviour when they saw less economic gain in those behaviours. Both groups were also motivated by a perceived moral responsibility and by a high self-assessed awareness of one's electricity consumption and saving possibilities. Consumers and prosumers, however, differed in the degree to which they were compelled by these reasons: prosumers had higher confidence that pro-environmental behaviours would benefit the environment, improve their comfort and life-quality, they felt more moral responsibility to perform such behaviours and assessed their electricity awareness as higher. This study confirms and identifies systematic differences between consumers and prosumers in their pro-environmental intentions and motivations, and the differences are discussed in terms of initial self-selection and possible spill-over effects.

Studies suggest that householders who turn prosumers become more energy aware, change their pattern of electricity use and may even start to engage in other pro-environmental activities. However, few of these studies were equipped to investigate such causal relationships—mainly because most prosumers are inherently self-selected. However, as real estate companies and building owners have begun installing photovoltaics on their customers’ behalf, a new breed of non-self-selected prosumers is emerging, which presents new opportunities to address questions of causality and thus improve our understanding of the possible implications of a more prosumer-dense future. Using a sample of 54 apartment households with a shared rooftop PV installation, this article presents the first causal analysis on non-self-selected prosumers’ response to information about having become prosumers, what that means for themselves and the collective they are part of, how to self-consume solar electricity and why they should do so. Using a stepped wedge design and stratified randomization procedure we were able to design an experimental study with sufficient power. A panel regression model and various statistical analyses on pre and post treatment survey- and electricity use data were used to evaluate the intervention. In line with studies of self-selected prosumers, the self-reported measures suggest that householders have shifted the use of major appliances to increase their self-consumption. However, based on the electricity use data, we find no evidence of a such a shift and no indications of spillovers to other pro-environmental behaviours—highlighting the need to use multiple measures to assess behavioural change.