Designing Eco-Feedback Systems for Communities: Interrogating a Techno-solutionist Vision for Sustainable Communal Energy

TY - GEN

T1 - Designing Eco-Feedback Systems for Communities

T2 - 10th International Conference on Communities and Technologies: Wicked Problems in the Age of Tech, C and T 2021

AU - Jensen, Rikke Hagensby

AU - Teli, Maurizio

AU - Jensen, Simon Bjerre

AU - Gram, Mikkel

AU - Harboe Sørensen, Mikkel

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 ACM.

PY - 2021/6/20

Y1 - 2021/6/20

N2 - The notion of establishing energy communities where householders collectively participate in using renewable energy is highly topical. In this paper, we interrogate a design vision of sustainable communal energy developed through a techno-solutionist narrative. The vision is exemplified in a recommendation-based mobile app, the Community Energy Planner app, that provides individual and collective energy feedback on renewable energy actions. To obtain insights into how householders understand and experience embedding such recommended communal energy feedback into domestic energy-consuming practices, we deployed the app with six households for one month. Through a qualitative study, we report on householders' experiences living with the app on an individual and at a community level. Our findings are presented in four themes, revealing that recommended feedback on individual and collective energy actions is challenging to align with the messiness of domestic life. Finally, we discuss alternative design visions for sustainable communal energy. The main contribution of this paper is twofold: 1) a field deployment study of a techno-solutionist narrative of communal energy facilitated through an app and, 2) a discussion on alternatives to this design vision.

AB - The notion of establishing energy communities where householders collectively participate in using renewable energy is highly topical. In this paper, we interrogate a design vision of sustainable communal energy developed through a techno-solutionist narrative. The vision is exemplified in a recommendation-based mobile app, the Community Energy Planner app, that provides individual and collective energy feedback on renewable energy actions. To obtain insights into how householders understand and experience embedding such recommended communal energy feedback into domestic energy-consuming practices, we deployed the app with six households for one month. Through a qualitative study, we report on householders' experiences living with the app on an individual and at a community level. Our findings are presented in four themes, revealing that recommended feedback on individual and collective energy actions is challenging to align with the messiness of domestic life. Finally, we discuss alternative design visions for sustainable communal energy. The main contribution of this paper is twofold: 1) a field deployment study of a techno-solutionist narrative of communal energy facilitated through an app and, 2) a discussion on alternatives to this design vision.

KW - communal eco-feedback

KW - Energy community

KW - energy recommendations

KW - field deployment study

KW - sustainability

KW - techno-solutionist

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109378955&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3461564.3461581

DO - 10.1145/3461564.3461581

M3 - Article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:85109378955

SP - 245

EP - 257

BT - C and T 2021 - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Communities and Technologies

A2 - Cech, Florian

A2 - Farnham, Shelly

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

Y2 - 21 June 2021 through 25 June 2021

ER -