Any source of energy that can be replenished faster or as fast as it is being used is per definition a renewable energy source. The burning of fossil fuels & thermo nuclear energy is not regarded as renewable energy forms.

Independent of exising infrastructure

Where is it?

To have renewable energy you needs to capture it from a natural source that contain energy. Wind, Light and Flowing Water are the most common energy sources. As flowing water has a much higher density than wind, it is much more efficient as an energy source. A large wind turbine is required to capture the wind, but a small water turbine might capture the same amount in water. Solar Panels can convert up to 40% of the light that hits them in the best case scenario, but due to their small format and long life cycle they are ideal for powering remote equipment of different types.

Politics

Renewable Energy is a commonly referred to by many in the public discourse, and it seems to have become more so in the current strained financial times[1]. As one can see from the google trends graph below, the interest and media coverage is high and rising:

The ongoing climate debate does also push for action and the decision makers are moved towards this field as government funds globally feels more just if spent on this cause rather the banks and financial systems. Change is needed and it should and will come from this field, but tradition, cost, legislation and expensive infrastructure are dampers on development.

President Obama is trying to start a shift towards an industry that will produce renewable energy technology and equipment and is using government funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate this development. This stimulus is part of the plan to get back up again after the crisis that has hit American finance and automotive industries quite hard[2].

1. Google. (2009, April 04). Renewable Energy. Retrieved April
   02, 2009, from Google Trends: http://www.google.com/
   trends?q=renewable+energy
2. Whitehouse.gov, “Energy & Environment”, 19. March 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/energy_and_environment/, (Accessed: April 2009

Structural Strain
Using the blog medium as my main communication channel has had its advantages, but also challenges. The result is presented in a style that reflects similar small communities. This exploits the format well and enforces the strength of the evidence.  As a research tool it has two main advantages, there is a short distance to a lot of readers and the addition of active and dynamic content can enrich a text. As a primary source for official documentation of the process it has proved bit more challenging as the tradition of documenting a diploma is in a linear fashion. Instead of embracing the format fully in the documentation I have reworked the structure so it is possibly more similar to a traditional text to navigate. This is not optimal and the structure is therefore also presented in this book.

Challenged preconceptions
Through the scenario presented at untappedenergy.org I have explored some of the design opportunities found during the research. untappedenergy.org as well as behind.untappedenergy.org are entry points to a discourse on how we designers, as well as consumers, can be challenged to reshape our preconceptions of energy in our homes. The combined result and documentation of this diploma scratches the surface of a mostly unexplored field of design that has a bright future.

The Jitter PLugz Website

Background
This is an evidence that explore aspects of design opportunities related to the possibilities in the connection of virtual wires in a smart grid. Through the product Jitter Plugz I suggest a service that you install as a “widget” or small program in your energy dashboard. This widget is linked to a small portable electrical socket that you can plug in wherever you are, at work or on vacation, and will feed you only the energy produced by your generating devices in your home. The communication is also made available though your Twitter[1] feed for added visibility. This can be a motivation factor as you can show and share your daily production. A version of the widget is also provided for communities and is added to the sidebar display current events. When it is clicked it takes you to the jitterplugzcom front page with a brief explanation of what it does. These evidences are not functional.

© Tweet-A-Watt project

Reference Project
The Tweet-A-Watt project has received lots of attention after it won the greener gadgets design competition this year. It’s concept is to measure consumption and send a Tweet about it on Twitter.

The jitterPlugz, in addition to send electricity from one socket to the other, can Tweet about is production and exchange electricity as well. Using twitter there is also the possibility to let the devices autonomously communicate through twitter to make a visible and updated stream of information. Other Jitterz could request energy from any such plug, and it’s owner could use Twitter to respond to those requests.

1. A very popular Micro blog where only 140 characters of content is allowed

Energy at home - dashboard

Motivation
Using this product is a matter of participating in a community that pools its resources (electricity) to the benefit of its participants. Sharing production statistics as well as sharing the energy (not evidenced at this point) is a step in the road to become self-sufficient on electricity.

Process
This service is evidenced as a widget, a small standalone application, that can be included in any web page. In this case the widget is added by the blog owner Eric André (my main persona), and it is accessible through the blog sidebar. The widget, when clicked, takes you to the main energy@home web site (see above) that I included to suggest how this service might be presented. Its intention is to let you have details on your own statistics, your community statistics and global statistics.

Myenergyusage community statistics, in real time!

1. Anderson, D., Cobb, J., Korpela, E., Lebofsky, M., & Werthimer,
   D. (2002). SETI@home: An Experiment in Public-Resource Computing. Berkley: Space Sciences Laboratory U.C. Berkley.

While the content of untappedEnergy.org is made by me, the general visual style is adapted from a generic theme that is made available through the software provider wordpress.org

Persona

Personas are a documented set of archetypical people who are involved with a product or service[1].

Based on the interviews I got three typical archetypes and one based on my own demographic:

The pro-active
The energy consumer that pay for better utilisation of energy

The post-active
The sober consumer who makes the best of the existing structures

The “Heritage”
The one who are imprinted with a different paradigm for energy consumption and tries to adapt.

The Technical
The one who enjoys exploring new technology and inform others about it. Also seen as the early adaptor as new technology costs money and not everyone will jump on the band wagon before it starts.

See more of their background at untappedenergy.org.

1. Saffer, D. (2007). Designing for Interaction. Berkley: New Riders.

Rapid Development
The method allows for relative rapid production and creates, if successful, a way of experiencing a future concept, product or service without using lots of time on a functional prototype. The choice to make a fictional blog is a consequence of writing all of the process in a blog format and also the success of evidences throughout the process.

Discussion Seeds
The use of evidences in the blog format has shown to me that this is a great opportunity to create discussion outside of the school. This can be exploited even more effectively by posting the evidences to popular social bookmark sites (where users rate the bookmarks) such as digg.com and reddit.com. Thay will give you thousands of visitors if you break through the noise of the other bookmarks.

My intention by including the “family home” as a context in the start was to make the result easily accessible to occasional readers I think this combination of methods suits the project well.

1. http://www.servicedesign.org/glossary/evidence/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_document

Illustrating the vertical old- and the node based new infrastructure

Full Control
Today the electricity infrastructure and related services has little transparency for the regular consumer. On the left in the above illustration it is clear that the vertical one way structure gives the customers little added value. Comparing this to the right side of the illustration, the smart grid offers the consumer an equal spot in the smart grid as the next guy or a power company. By giving the end consumer the opportunity to plug a solar panel into the grid it could motivate a change in how we perceive electricity production today. The nodes in this Distributed Generation scenario have full freedom to connect input output over the entire grid and pool, split and regroup the various elements in the smart grid.

Exponential Growth?
This individual node in this new grid might smaller in scale than the the energy re-sellers and the producers capacities, but as more and more small contributors would connect to the Smart Grid their combined efforts will become notable. I think it could be the feeling of just generate enough electricity to keep your iPod, PC or one or two appliances on just your self-produced energy that will appeal to many in the start. One can just imagine the Youtube of energy sharing or the Piratebay of rouge electricity…

1. European Commission. (2006). European Technology Platform Smart Grids. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Tangible Electricity

Mental Image
Electricity should be more tangible than today, not as a shocking experience, but as a mental image. If awareness is increased by visualising data, then a mental image of electricity as something you can produce, store and use in a similar fashion to The SunCat battery would be even better.

Tree Parts
I see The SunCat batteries as three distinct parts:

• electricity production
• electricity storage
• electricity usage

Deconstructing the battery

Combined
When these parts are combined in the very manageable size of a C-Cell battery it gives the user the ultimate control and ownership of his or hers electricity. This mental image or experience is attempted realised in the daily life of the contributors to “untappedEnergy.org”.

A selection of posts on the batteries

The concept was picked up by the editor of hackaday.com who wrote an article on the project. As hackaday.com writes about often advanced technology re-configured or built into something new by private persons, they have become a primary news source for numerous other blog/news sites. From here the concept spread like wildfire. inhabitat.com, threehugger.com, ohgizmo.com, cnet.com, Boing Boing, wired.com, gizmodo.com and engadet.com were amongst the larger to write about the concept.

Numbers
In the moment of writing are there 7520 hits on google and 172 blogs that link back to my original post. But the most interesting result of this hype was all the discussion generated over these sites, my blog and flickr. It was most encouraging and lead directly to the format of the result.

Comments
The most interesting part is that no one that I have discovered says the concept is fake. A few points out that it would not work due to some technical details, and they might be right, but even they did not dismiss the idea. In fact did several commentators suggest improvements and work a rounds to make it function.

Here are some:

The helpful:

Goondoks/Gizmodo: You really only need the the PV on half the battery, unless you use mirrors. The windows in my house don’t track the sun all to well. Maybe you could charge them by setting them up like sun dials[1].

The Smart:

Carlhage/Cnet:A flexible cell might be 50W/m2 or 5mw/cm2 in full sun. An AA battery is about 3mWh, and
there will be a small area, maybe 3cm2, but reflection at shallow angles might reduce this to 1 or 2 cm2. Also, it won’t be at the maximum power point, so 1/2 the power is lost. It might need 1000 hours of full-sun to charge– probably longer than the self-discharge rate[2].

The not so helpful, but funny:

abeagle/hackaday: get your self some radioactive waste, mix it up into a paste. Then smear the radioactive goo all over the face of the solar cell. Finally roll up the solar cell into the size of your desired battery. Viola, This will work during cloudy days too[3].

Finally there was a request to buy volumes of these batteries to Haiti and a request came from a Japanese television show to have them featured on TV. But that will be for another day.

The concept is also presented as the DIY project of one of my personas in the blog untappedenergy.org.

1. http://gizmodo.com/5156389/suncat-solar-batteries-well-that-was-obvious#c10841369
2. http://news.cnet.com/8618-17938_105-10173434.html?communityId=2007&targetCommunityId=2007&blogId=1&messageId=7633851
3. http://hackaday.com/2009/02/16/solar-batteries/#comment-63241

Rapid Evidencing
My idea was to eliminate this extra step and make batteries self-charging. This idea was presented in the format of a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) project that are very popular online. Through detailed technology research to provide additional arguments and a picture by picture tutorial, the project was presented on Flickr and my original blog. The crucial bait was to add one image to the Flickr gallery belonging to the MAKE magazine which has a large following in the online DIY community. The result was spectacular.

These images are from my Flickr account. They are commented to tell a story.

Smart Grid Complexity

I did however try do find out what opportunities I had as a private home owner in Oslo. Most of Oslo is operated electrically by Hafslund AS. I requested if there was a device that automatically read my consumption data and their answer was:

We offer a remote reading of your meter, that reads once every hour.The data will be automatically sent to us.

Once every hour is not very impressive, and they send it back to them? Well I want something I could review in real time. Further:

If you want such a meter its cost is 2500.- NOK. But with-in 2013 all meters will be replaced with smart meters[1].

This was interesting, but the price and low use value discouraged me for buying such a meter. I’ll wait to 2013 then.

1. Kordal, Renate. Hafslund Nett Support. March 6, 2009.

Comfort

Providing comfort

Electricity provides us with an instant and unlimited source of energy that power all the items that makes our lives more comfortable. Light and heat affects us the most as energy source for easy reading, preparing meals, stable indoor temperature and entertainment. I believe our habit of easy comfort would be greatly compromised without access to unlimited and readily available energy.

Anachronism

Anachronisms in a digital life

Some times, as parts of the infrastructure might be old and strained, we have to change the active components in the system, like a fuse. In our modern world there is a surprisingly high number of old electrical infrastructure around us. There is ofcourse variance to this, but that such analogue items even exists today is for me a bit bewildering.

Money

Online payment

In Norway the electricity is quite cheap and only varies a little through the seasons. Other countries have different pricing through the day to encourage saving when the total consumption is high.

Summary

These touchpoints makes it quite visible how little we can affect our daily handling of electricity. We cannot easily change the source of the currents, we depend upon an hierarchy for distribution we cannot control.

Infrastructure Problems
All the easily available fuel cells from Efoy and Medis and many others runs on Methanol and not Hydrogen. This results in a CO² release when electricity is produced. As hydrogen is very volatile and is hard to store in a compact and small space, the infrastructure for Hydrogen is presently not there. Fuel Cell cars running on Hydrogen would work since they can drive to the filling station. These cars are still experimental, but might be available in a few years.

The available fuel cells might be convenient in providing silent electricity production, but they are currently not the technological solution. Not using hydrogen for fuel makes the cells carbon dioxide emitters (less known is that most of today’s hydrogen is made from hydrocarbons and not from water[1]) and to use hydrogen requires a big infrastructure to be built. In the future regenerative fuel cells could become an alternative as their only input is electricity and their only output is electricity[2].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
2. CRM Prototech, Backup power, September 2008, http://www.prototech.no/index.cfm?id=223465

Cornucopica Norwegia
The current paradigm of electricity in Norway imitates a cornucopia. The only variable to energy supply (in form of electricity) is the price. As a consequence the only concern I might have regarding the electricity, is the bill. What if we flipped the coin? What if the price was fixed, but supply was limited? Arguably global energy supply is not unlimited, although growing, so is demand.

Early Exploration
At a local scale I will explore how a limited resource can be shared in a P2P fashion by augmenting it with local production of energy. The goal is to uncover useful concepts that will challenge existing paradigms in energy supply. 1. The green apartment are producing more energy than needed, while the red appartment has a deficit.2. The green appartment shares its surplus with the red appartment.3. At any given moment there are apartments producing, receiving and some that are neutral in this system. How does this impact the daily life of the families living in this apartment block? How can this be done in such a manner that it feels just?

1. European Commission. (2006). European Technology Platform Smart Grids. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Blogger

This was the host of my primary blog before I switched to the current format of two blogs on my own server. It contains notes from different things that I present online. It is operated by Google, but redirected to my domain: blog.bareknut.no.

flickr (Pro)

Is the online image host and community of photographers owned and operated by Yahoo. The appeal of flickr is its narrow focus on images and its very active community. Posting the right image to the right interest group can generate a lot of hits on an image.

Vimeo

As opposed to the wildly popular youtube operated by Google, Vimeo offers a calmer more content creation focused workflow and community. The majority of content appears to be made by the original uploader.

Picasaweb

I use the Picasa image browser as my day to day images organizer on my stationary computer. Google operates a lot of the services i use and also Picasa/Picasaweb. As picasaweb is the online storage of the Picasa software it is ideal in working with images on the blog. 

Del.icio.us

Also a subsidiary of Yahoo, del.icio.us provides an common pool for bookmarks over many platforms and discrete devices. The strength of annotating bookmarks with tags and notes makes it easy to categorize and order them in an very useful way for reuse by me and others. Streams of relevant bookmarks can be syndicated to mine or others blogs through RSS.

Wordpress.org

Is the self-service version of Wordpress.com. Available for download and installation on your own servers the software enables great control and an economical way of publishing material related to my work. The sites behind.untappedEnergy.org & untappedenergy.org are published through the Wordpress installation.

Utility: Short for “Public Utility” which refers to the company that maintains an infrastructure that is a public infrastructure. Communication, Water, Electricity, Natural Gas and Sewage are the usual services these companies operate the infrastructure for. When I refer to a “Utility” in this text I signify a company that operates the public electric infrastructure. These infrastructures are expensive to run so they often are monopolies on a local and/or national scale.

The Grid: Refers to a network that can have physical similarities to a grid. “The Grid” can have several meanings depending on who you talk to, but the name usually relates to the physical structure of an Public Utility. In this text however “The Grid” reflects the interconnected electrical infrastructure that electricity is distributed through.

The Smart Grid: From a utility perspective the smart grid is at a large scale already implemented in many places. The backbones of the electric infrastructure are aware of its own status through various sensing devices. When one area of a country needs more power this is automatically or semi-automatically remedied. This is also called load balancing.

From an end user perspective the current Grid is not very smart. The devices called smart meters, that measures electrical consumption automatically and send the data to the power seller, are for the most part there to help the businesses retrieve accurate and real time information on their product[1].

Fuel Cell: Traditionally a fuel is burned to put its energy into useful work like motion. A fuel cell can convert this energy directly into a useful state, without burning it, in the form of electricity. A bonus is that if Hydrogen is used, the only output aside from heat and electricity is water. The fuel cell combines hydrogen (stored in a tank) and oxygen (derived from the air) in a catalytic reaction into water. In this process both heat and electricity is generated.

Electricity: A current is the movement of an electrical charge in a medium. Usually this is electrons running though a copper wire. The number of electrons passing a point can be measured and is measured in Amperes (A). More known to the end consumer is Watts, as every appliance and bulb at home usually are marked with their maximum Watt rating. The price we pay for our electricity consumption is based on how many thousand watt hours (kWh) we consume. 1kWh is consumed by a 1000W appliance in 1 hour.

Photo Voltaics: The field of research on Solar Cells. A Photo Voltaic cell (or solar cell) can convert light directly into a current that can be put to work.

Energy Dashboard: A virtual control panel provided either in a dedicated hardware or as a Graphical User Interface on the internet or in a custom software. This type of control panel usually display statistics of consumption, but more advanced versions can compare statistics with others and/or function as a remote to the various systems and appliances relevant to the management of energy in your home.

gadget: Small mechanical or electronic equipment.

ubiquitous computing: A term that a Mark Weiser introduced a few decades ago. In this field of work the computer as a physical device has been assimilated into all objects and as a result computing is all around us. The possibilities for new interactions with our environment in a post-desktop future are part of what ubiquitous computing explores[2].

greenwashing: A term for intentionally make products and services appear as ecological friendly by adding words and phrases related to the ecological friendly movements. “Green”, “Eco” and “Sustainable” are examples of such words[3].

API: “Application Protocol Interface” is an specification for programmers to use when they are connecting one product to another. The API allow information to flow between two different systems.

GUI: “Graphical User Interface” is the visual expression of a software where you can observe its output.

1. European Commission. (2006). European Technology Platform
   Smart Grids. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the
   European Communities
2. Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware. Berkley: New Riders
3. http://www.greenwashingindex.com/what.php

The research found that current discourse in this field is about awareness enabled by automatic collection of meter data and visualise them in various contexts. My contribution to the discourse is an argument for the consumers’ participation in energy production. Starting beyond consumption awareness is also a possible change in our behaviour, the more participation and ownership of our electricity, the more conscious we become to how and where it is used[1]. If a large scale movement would develop in this paradigm it could potentially influence politics and traditional hierarchical structures in the energy business.

Abstract

“The diploma will research and explore design opportunities related to renewable energy in the context of the family home. Concepts related to local production and/or conservation of energy will be investigated.”

The design opportunities found where largely explored while working on the scenario blog. The family aspect has been downplayed in the sense that not all age groups where designed for, but the context of the concepts are still placed within the family home. The intention of including the word “family” was to make sure the result is in a believable context from a family perspective, rather than a designer perspective or business perspective.

Initially I thought my concepts and end results would be more specific problem solving products or services designed as experience prototypes or similar artefacts. The research and ideas emerging from that work indicated that it was not the actual tools to produce or reduce that where the important design opportunities. I think the holistic approach made sense this time, where the key insights made room for future design work as suggested in the evidences.

Questions

What design opportunities lies in promoting a decentralized way of thinking about energy?

The biggest design opportunities lies in not thinking from the same perspective as the energy companies. Usually they are built to fit the current paradigm and does not see the monetary gain in the smart grid outside of making their current operations more efficient and by that more valuable. The decentralizes thinking are much more friendly to the end consumer. If a free exchange of energy is made available to the public, much like how internet has made file sharing available, there is a whole new area where products and services could be designed. This decentralized infrastructure is also a place where a lot of new jobs could be created.

We need some sort of “tap” that could deliver the sun or the wind right in our kitchen when we need it.

The “tap” suggested in the title has manifested itself, maybe a bit by chance,  in the new outlined situation. Energy produced by you could be specifically applied in an appliance. This is achieved by giving full control over any amount energy produced by a private person, by utilising the grid as a battery where the amount “uploaded” can be “downloaded” or tapped at will.

Ambitions

The Diploma will aim to explore and design concepts and ideas that aim to challenge existing preconceptions of current energy production/conservation and try to give insights into where this will go in the near future.

The untappedEnergy.org blog is an attempt to make an argument to challenge existing preconceptions and also a suggestion into where it might go in the future.

1. Darby, S. (2006). THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FEEDBACK ON. Oxford: University Of Oxford

Shaping a future
For designers today there is a big opportunity to shape a phenomenon, the smart grid, to something as important as the internet. A combination of information sharing through the web and energy sharing through the smart grid has huge implications for societies[1]and need responsible designers to design responsible and prosperouos services. Service, Interaction and Product designers need to join forces and through a combined effort develop these systems to the backbone of the coming centuries.

1. Rifkin, J. (2002, December 23). The Office of Jermey Rifkin. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from Hydrogen Economy: http://www.foet.org/global/HE/The%20Nation%20-%20December%2023%202002.pdf

Bell, G., & Dorish, P. (2006). Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision. London: Springer-Verlag London Limited.

Datschefski, E. (2001). The total beauty of sustainable products. Crans-Près-Céligny: RotoVision.

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse. London: Penguin Books.

Löwgren, J., & Stolterman, E. (2004). Thoughtful Interaction Design. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Specific references to each post are refered to in the post..

Rennie, J. (2008). Editor’s letter. Scientific American , 2.

Thackara, J. (2005). In the bubble. Cambridge: MIT Press.

World Alliance for Distributed Energy. (2008, January 1). WADE. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from WADE info: http://www.localpower.org/abt_mission.html

Anderson, D., Cobb, J., Korpela, E., Lebofsky, M., & Werthimer, D. (2002). SETI@home: An Experiment in Public-Resource Computing. Berkley: Space Sciences Laboratory U.C. Berkley.

Darby, S. (2006). The effectiveness of feedback on Energy consumption. Oxford: University Of Oxford.

Galloway, A. (2008, May 5). Dissertation. Retrieved April 15, 2009, from purselipsquarejaw.org: http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/dissertation/galloway_phd_ch3.pdf

Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware. Berkley: New Riders.

Hornby, A. S. (1992). Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koerner, B. I. (2009, March 03). Power to the People: 7 Ways to Fix the Grid, Now. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-04/gp_intro

Lemonick, M. D. (2009, January 1). Top Ten Myths About Sustainability. Scientific American Earth 3.0 , pp. 40-45.

Mortensen, T., & Walker, J. W. (2002). Blogging thoughts. Researching ICTs in context (pp. 249-279). Oslo: InterMedia.

Norman, D. A. (1998). The Invisible Computer. London: MIT Press.

Saffer, D. (2007). Designing for Interaction. Berkley: New Riders.

Sterling, B. (2005). Shaping Things. London: MIT Press.

Vince, G. (2008, December 6). Life Unplugged. New Scientist , pp. 30-34.

More indirect references can be found at del.icio.us/eknut/master.

The interviews made a few things very evident. Background and financial status had a great impact on the topic. The more financial secure home builders had a much more investigative and pro active perspective on renewable energy. Not only to save money, but to contribute to the reduction of waste energy.Gunnar, who is urban living and has an academic background, had an economical motivation for doing small improvements in existing energy infrastructure to reduce waste and the energy bill.

Background

The Architect couple, while professionally occupied with energy in buildings, had interesting experiences from different cultures. Living in Japan, France and the UK they could compare the variations. While Mirei, who grew up in Japan, had the more expressed need to turn off and unplug (even hated wasting energy while heating the electrical oven compared to the gas cooker) Jonas with a little more relaxed on the issue. Jonas experience with solar panels in the family was a little sarcastic: “A massive panel to power three puny little lights…”

Conclusion

Common for them all was a sort of two stage approach to the field; what they knew and what they did in their daily life. A design opportunity here would be to enable more of their knowledge to be used in their daily activities, maybe reminding or encourage them through visual interfaces? A system for encouraging educated green actions, at the moment of decision, would be an improvement. Today, much of the interaction with energy seems to go without consciousness (See “switches I press daily“).

1. Jeg forbinder fornybar energi med vannkraft. I det siste har jeg vært vikar i en naturfagstime og undervist om vannkretsløpet der vannkraft inngår.

2. Min seneste erfaring med fornybar energi var et besøk til Dale kraftverk. Det er en tradisjon i Bergen at undomsskoleelever drar dit.

3. I dag kommer strømmen vi bruker fra Fjordkraft/BKK og en vedovn. Samt noen batterier.

4. Vi er hovedsakelig i kontakt med sin strømleverandør på to punkter; avlesning av strømmåler og betaling av faktura i nettbanken.

5. Ja! Jeg følger med på strømregningen som varierer gjennom året. Leser mye i media om energi og energi priser gjennom reklame, nyheter og fakta. Har også besøkt vitensenteret i Bergen. Men han følger ikke så nøye med at han vet hva strømprisen er!

6. Jo, jeg har tenkt at vi har fyrt for kråkene av og til. Sagt det også. Som utøvende populærmusiker ser han også at konserter og øvinger krever en del strøm for å drive lydbildet.

7. Hjemme hos oss slår vi av lys, fjernsyn, data og ovn, særlig hvis vi reiser bort mer enn en helg. Jeg drar ut noen støpsler daglig der det ikke er for tungvint.

8. Jeg har kjøpt noen sparepærer fordi det vistnok lønner seg. De ble kjøpt på IKEA hvor de var billige. Men vi har ikke gjort opp et regnskap over hvor mye vi har spart. ENØK står for ENergi ØKonomisering.

9. Ja, for så vidt. Jeg har tenkt på det med varme og slikt. Vi etterisolerte der det trakk som mest med tetningslister. Vi benytter vedovnen til oppvarming hvis vi har fått litt billig eller gratis ved. Da blir det fort mindre utgifter.

10. Jeg syklet på en sykkel med dynamo på vitensenteret og på sin egen sykkel med dynamo. Så jeg har produsert min egen kraft. Hva med do kraft, dragsuget som genererer strøm?

11. Det bygges et kraftverk i Jondal som man kunne investert i, men det gjør vi nok ikke. Det har vært vurdert å benyyte pellets, men føler ikke at det er fornybar energi på linje med vann, sol og vind.

12. Ja, det er jo fra, eller jeg går utifra at det kommer fra, vannkraft. Hørt om at det blir importert elektrisitet produsert i kullkraftverk fra kontinentet som forurenser. Hørte om et norskt gasskraftverk som ikke er i drift ennå, men som vi kjørte forbi en dag.

Photo: Margrethe T. Trædal

2. Erfaring og erfaring. Kan vel ikkje sei at eg har noko av den slag, men kjenner jo til begrep som vasskraft, vindkraft, bølgekraft, solenergi, men dette er jo gjennom fokus i media dei siste åra.

3. I huset vi leiger i dag, benytter vi oss av struam til det meste, men det er og vedfyring tilgjengelig.

4. I og med at vi nettopp har flytta inn i dette huset, har eg nyleg vore i kontakt med BKK/Fjordkraft over telefon. Heretter vil nok kommunikasjonen vere i form av fakturarer og internettbesøk.

5. Har nok aldri spesifikt tenkt over energiforbruket mitt ein bestemt dag, men prøver jo heile tida å begrense straumbruken. Dette har vi vore relativt fokusert på med tanke på huset vi skal bygge. Huset vil i stor grad følge nye byggforeskrifter, og vere oppvarma gjennom vassboren varme (luft til vatn) i tillegg til vedfyring. Har trua på at straumforbruket vil bli ein god del redusert samanlikna med eit ordinært bolighus utan slike tiltak.

6. Kan vel eigentleg ikkje vise til noko spesiell situasjon, men eg synest jo det er ei god gjerning å velge eit dyrare byggalternativ for å spare miljøet ein del. Ein anna ting er at vi på garden vi skal ta over, har skrive under kontrakt om bygging av vasskraft i elva som går gjennom garden. Det siste har jo for så vidt ikkje så mykje med mitt energiforbruk å gjere, men vi tillet energiproduksjon i form av fornybar energi på vor eigedom. Det gir jo ein god følelse :)

7. Er veldig bevisst på å slå av lyset i rom som ikkje er i bruk. I grunnen er eg vel bevisst på å slå av alt elektronisk utstyr som ikkje treng vere på. Er bevisst på å ikkje “sleppe ut” varmen, slik at ein brukar minst mogeleg energi på oppvarming.

8. og 9. Ser jo at eg delvis har svart på desse spørsmåla tidlegare. Kan ikkje seie at vi har tenkt spesielt over enøk-tiltak i huset vi leiger no, men som tidlegare nemnt har vi vore ganske bevisste på dette i planlegginga av det nye huset. Betre isolering, luft til vatnpumpe med vassboren varme, mogeleg tjukkare vindauge enn dagens standard, alle opphaldsrom i same etasje (med tanke på oppvarming). Langsiktig håper vi at dette også skal svare seg økonomisk.

10. Her må eg nok enkelt og greit svare nei, trur eg…

11. Vel, veit vel egentlig ikkje, men no skal vi jo investere i eit eige vasskraftannlegg (i samarbeid med eit energiselskap), sjølv om dette sansynlegvis ikkje vil forsyne oss med straum direkte. Men ei investering er det jo likevel.

12. Straumen vi brukar er kjøpt gjennom BKK og Fjordkraft. Den blir nok i dag produsert gjennom vasskraft.

A series of three interviews probing what families with no known specific interest in renewable energy was conducted in early February.

Why

To see the field from a different perspective interviews are important to include in the research. Objects and angles that are easily missed can be found through the talks with external people.

How

They were conducted through phone, email and face to face.

The best efforts today are done to make consumers aware of their consumption and the assumption that this alone reduces consumption with 5-15%[1]. The motivation for doing so are usually from user perspective; to save money, or from the producer perspective; to save money. Some initiatives focus on the motivation of reducing the environmental impact. I want to empower the consumer with full control over his or hers consumption and encourage to home production of energy under the motivation of contribution, status and community spirit.

1. Darby, S. (2006). The effectiveness of feedback on Energy consumption. Oxford: University Of Oxford

Low on design, Low on Density

I regard the Renewable Energy design field as quite immature, unless one includes large/industrial size energy production equipment and control systems. I believe that one of the key factors to this is that the energy density of renewable energy sources is quite low. Wind and Sun requires large collectors or concentrators to generate enough energy to keep in touch with energy prices from other (also non-) renewable sources. Flowing Water has a high energy density (as pressure per sq/meter) that can be efficiently harvested using turbines, and in Norway 99% of the energy is made in this fashion.

None of these large scale methods is tailored for the private consumer. In some cases where the consumer is a long distance from a grid, smaller scale wind or solar or even water energy producing systems can be the more economical choice. So what we are left with in most cases for the private consumer are systems that are supplemental to the electrical grid.

Incentives

There is some variables to this. Especially are regional traditions and energy supply variations that have huge impacts on the way consumers perceive and act in their energy system. Various government incentives or restrictions do have a huge impact on private energy interaction[1]. This is often very visible in what gadgets that is available in different countries. If prices are high they have various watt meters with data logging and kW/h price information and even possibilities to share the information online.

Designing in two directions

I see two distinct routes for designers today. We have the product design track that includes a host of gadgets with solar panels or LEDs to replace more energy intense light emitters. This track also follow the big chunk of green design that looks green but that’s mostly because of the colours used such as untreated tree and green paint  ;)

Then there is the consume/production visualization/awareness. That can have tangible as well as pure digital interfaces. It is in this genre that most of the excitement is found today It seems. DIY Kyoto (Wattson), CurrentCost, Power Squid, Google.org are all doing much the same, measuring consume at the source in a home and visualizing it through the internet or just locally. More anonymously many energy utility companies have similar schemes both for convenience and due to regulations .

This track is also littered with many novel products that looks cool conceptually but seems to have a very little impact on any market. There is a Brazilian study that notes that many of the good looking acts to save or produce actually out consumes its intended saving/production potential (quote).

1. 2020, Sveriges Televisjon, 10 November 2008

In the book “Collapse” by Jared Diamond we get an insight into how societies through the latest millennia rise and collapse as a function of their wrong judgement of the sustainability of their culture. He raises a few questions that can be seen as a warning to an unconscious management and depletion of resources world wide[1]. From a design perspective on the same subject in the book “In the bubble”, John Thackara outlines opportunities related to how we as designers can work in a sustainable way[2].

Popular Science Publications

1. Diamon, J. (2005). Collapse. London: Penguin Books
2. Thackara, J. (2005).

   In the bubble. Cambridge: MIT Press.

There is a continuous stream of articles and news bites from various channels. The science magazines are currently having special issues on the theme and newspapers more frequently report on renewable energy projects. The global political agenda seems to be covering two causes; the financial crisis and the route out of it that includes a build up of industry that produces renewable energy equipment.

The Challenges of the diploma

Renewable energy can be seen as a “Magic Bullet” that gives us carte blanch in consuming energy. If technical challenges are surpassed and we have a surplus of renewable energy then we are in the free zone and can use power without any concern. So thinking of renewable energy as an unlimited supply (which per definition it is) can render all conscious thoughts of energy use mute. But from today with 86% fossil fuel use globally we have a long way to go[1]. The transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy seems might need to go faster than technology and adaptation at the moment is evolving.

Situation in Norway

Norway has since the middle of the seventies been a big producer of oil[2]. The oil has given us great experiences in offshore technology and also given us huge revenues. The downside is also our states dependence on oil for revenue and the need for producing oil for quite a long time until other industry can give us similar income.

For domestic energy consumption the citizens of Norway has been supplied with electricity from pure mountain water which is quite the opposite of fossil fuels that is burned once and then gone. I wonder if this polarization in energy production has lulled Norwegians into a belief that we, Norway, are clean. The perceivably clean, land based hydro power is delivered to our homes and the possibly dirty, offshore oil drilling is produced beyond our horizon.

Today, in Norway at least, domestic energy production is highly centralized in big power plants that produce electricity and sell it through an energy exchange open to the Scandinavian market. The buyers of this energy are the companies that in the end sell it to the consumer. This monetary flow is managed separately to the electricity flow. The actual electricity has to be used as it is produced and the routing of the electricity cannot be specified to the consumer in other ways than ensuring that the volume produced and sold is equal to the volume consumed.

In Norway is 98,5% of all electrical energy produced from water, with another 0,5% from wind. There is also a ongoing drive to enable owners of smaller streams to utilize its energy in miniature turbines and sell its energy. Electrical energy delivered to end consumers amounts to 51% of total energy consumption in Norway. The rest are fuels for industry and transportation (NVE 2008)[3]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption#cite_note-BPReview-1
2. http://www.museumsnett.no/ntm/no/utstillingene/Jakten_oljen/historie.htm
3. Norges Vassdrags- og energidirektorat, “Produksjon”, 1. April 2008, http://www.nve.no/no/Kraftmarked/Sluttbrukermarkedet/Varedeklarasjon/Produksjon-/, (Accessed: April 2009)

A diagram over the diploma structure

intro.untappedEnergy

This is the printed introduction to the diploma. It contains an introduction to all parts of the work and includes leads for most of the articles in this blog. Download here.

behind.untappedEnergy.org

Categorized as a research blog this blog contains all written and visual material that relates to the projects processes.

untappedEnergy.org

Contextualizing my ideas and concepts through an informal, but fictional community blog gives visitors to the site the opportunity to participate in an discourse. The personas who operate the blog are created by me, some of the comments made not from my personas are from other persons that are outside of the project.

Both blogs have generic visual designs (themes) made by third parties[1]. The themes are in some details customised by me to suit specific needs for navigation and storytelling.

1. http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

The Video

Is successful in implying an user operating the various features.The hand-held shaking of the camera adds to the probability of being filmed by an amateur

Virtual Wire

The panels needs a more detailed explanation. In these to pictures, some of the details are .. detailed.

Details of the metering panel

Details of the "Virtual Wire" Panel

Greener Action base

In the video the user connects the water boiler to the solar panel by drag & drop method. The idea is that the water boiler’s base will see this connection and only light up green when enough electricity is produced by the solar panel. This is shown in the accompanying picture in the post. The user can then be confident that the green tea he does drink is in fact greener.

Metering

Based on the research I did earlier on Meters and Energy Dashboards it is quite evident that some sort of control panel is at the base of any modern domestic electricity infrastructure. To place this on a screen in the Circuit Breaker is only meant as a metaphor on that I insert a layer between the user and the physical electricity. This is further enhanced by dragging the “Virtual Wire” screen on top of the current metering.

Greener actions

The idea of presenting the consumer with enough information to make a decision to turn an appliance on or off can have great effect on the power grid. In England there is a phenomenon named “TV Pickup” linked to the TV show “East Enders”. When the show ends an horde of viewers tap water into their tea kettles and switch them on. Such specific timed peaks on the load are quite rare, but can be observed in this clip from “Britain From Above” on BBC:

A solution to this problem is to inform people on the situation I real time at the moment they are to decide on turning things on or off. Examples of this are found in prototype like the “Smart Switch” that is harder to press while on a local peak. Or the tea kettle(Video) from Lennart Fahlén (SICS) that predicts peaks and let you collaboratively book a time slot when demand is low.

Concept development

This development was two staged to try to show the relation between setup and end use.

The Circuit Breaker Panel

Acknowledging the previous research a per appliance metering sorted under the traditional circuits would be MAYA, to quote a famous designer. The detailed metering is a solid base for the next step which is to connect the devices electrically together by virtual wires. If the electricity is metered and converted to abstracted units (kWh) there is no reason why discrete amounts of electricity can be routed to where you , the device or other services decide. This virtual wire panel acts as a detailed statistics display so inputs and outputs can be matched for connection. This panel would easily be open for third party services through an API.

The kettle

In this example the water boiler is matched to the solar panel and a connection is made. This parameter that is defined in the Virtual Wire panel is displayed in context as lights in the base of the boiler. When the predefined condition is true, the LEDs lights up to inform the consumer. It is now up to he or she to wait until the green light is on to turn the appliance on. A stricter device, made by a concious branded company, could enforce this by not letting anyone turn the device on until certain conditions where met.

Process images

Background

When the solar panel was installed and producing energy, confirmed by the mobile GUI we could have been content. A consequence of an intelligent Home Grid is that you could have virtual wiring. As the actual electricity is measured and converted to an abstract unit (kWh) services are free to trade and move these units between appliances. If an appliance like the kettle is supplied with a set measure of kWh it can control itself to use just that amount. So if your solar panel produces 528KJ in four hours and eleven minutes it is enough to give 2200 Watts for 4 minutes which is enough to cook water for a cup of tea or so.

User Motivation

So instead of just deduct the kWh produced from the total consumption, a more interesting action would be to specify where that energy is used. To be able to control when and where his own energy is produced and then be able to control the same at the consumption is key to give the user a greater sense of participation and ownership to his electricity.

Context

On a time scale, this action would not necessary be done each day. One could set it up once and be happy with that. Or if you are an eager user testing several set-ups would be the norm.

Analysis
The goal of this was to emphasise the use of in context screens so to not distract people from what they are doing, but just keep on going while working on it. This is visible in the narrative and suggests the use of phone screens as a useful interface to the appliance.

Conclusion
This is an design opportunity where designers, and product developers can come together and develop interfaces that adds value to “mute” products.

References
I have previously done a project developing a messaging service based on NFC phones and RFID tags. The reasoning for this is that phones with this ability is not saturating the market in Norway as of today. In this reality there are usually the Koreans or South East Asians that have access to commercial services that utilises their NFC capable phones. On the other side, there is quite a few research projects that investigates this technology, such as the TOUCH project I’ve been involved in previously, lead by Timo Arnall.

Concept Development
To be able to immediately compare the output of a device, the energy it produces, with something you are familiar with a valid parameter to display is the effect it produces electricity at i.e. Watt. If the device have an output of 54 Watts you could power another device that consumes the same, lets say a 50 Watt laptop charger. On a generating unit, this parameter in real time can help maximising output by tuning position or other environmental parameters. The other interesting parameter to display is Watts over time. Watts per seconds/minute/hours will give an indication of how much energy you have produced, and if not immediately consumed, stored for future use. How many thousand Watts per hour (kWh) you produce or consume is the common unit of measurement when buying or selling electricity for private consumers. These parameters useful to display on any unit:

Process images

Background
As previously discussed, visual feedback of consumption have an impact on consumption (up to 20% reduction). To have access to real time information give you the best opportunity to act then and there, but also give a great amount of historical data that might be used to enhance parameters in the future.

Motivation
I am fascinated by statistics and connections and would like all artefacts to be approachable and have an interface which I could tap into. As of today, in my view, this idea is best served by a mobile phone with NFC capability. In that context, any item can have a rich interface that does not depend upon the artefact’s physical traits outside of containing a RFID tag. Using a phone or other device to read the tag via very short range radio waves the ID of the artifact can be looked up in a database and connected to a stream of dynamic or static information that can be sent to the screen of the phone.

Context
Building on the story of installing the solar panels the person would like to see how much electricity that is produced. This could be done at a stationary computer or other display, but by moving away from the desk the idea is to give the person this ability where he or she is to avoid interrupting the joy of the product in place.

Points of interest

1. Solar panel installation
In just emulating a solar panel installation the image does a good job. The advantage of shopping rather than installing a real or model panel is freedom of composition. The picture includes the parts I needed to tell the story and little else.

2. Inlet/Outlet Socket
A feedback on this part of the image is that it is a bit ambiguous what the lights signify. One could be that green means “This socket delivers green energy right now”. So further work could consist of making a less ambiguous language of the signifier.

Conclusion
The image and narrative suggest a snapshot of the resent installation of solar panel in my persona’s living room. A video of the persona connecting the lead from the PV panel to the Inlet/Outlet would have explained the function of the LEDs better than just the photo.

References
The greenergadgets competition 2009 had an entry which is playing in the same field. The Inlet concept suggests a second socket type in our homes that accepts generating devices connected to it. The design uses the poka-yoke principle to accept only specially designed power leads from the generating devices.

Concept Development
The key idea to my suggested design is to let the Smart Grid be smart and auto sense the incoming electricity and route the incoming electricity to the inverter. In this case the user will not need to concider the characteristics of the power in the lead (Consumption or Production).

Process images

Background
In Germany there has been a federal law (The “Stromeinspeisungsgesetz”) since December 1990 that regulates how the utilities buy back renewable energy from their customers. This law combined with low interest loans for installing solar energy has made Germany a leader in private solar installations. Good federal legislations is key to the proliferation of private renewable energy installations.

Motivation
The act of producing power at home has been available to the regular, but interested customer, for a while. Usually the system would consist of a generator and one of three options:

1. Immediate use of the produced electricity
   • Cheap to install and operate
   • Limited to applications proportional to energy production
2. A battery to store produced energy
   • Independent of infrastructure
   • Expensive and bulky batteries required
3. An inverter that lets you make the generator a part of the main grid
   • Needs no batteries and easy to operate
   • Legislation, incentives and technology required

The first option is impractical, but for a vent fan that should operate only on a warm sunny day, this option is fine. The more common solution is to store energy in a battery for use when it is not sunny or at the times where you need more that the current production allows. The most elegant solution, that is common in places where the government gives incentives like 4:1 ratio on production price versus consumption price, is to send electricity back to the grid, when it is produced. In this option the grid acts as a battery. Currently this requires special equipment to be installed and legislation needs to be in place and the local utility must have an electricity grid that can manage to get ectricity the other way.

This visualisation suggests how simple it should be:

1. Install the solar panel on a wall that faces the sun for the better part of the day
2. Plug it in to the inlet for sending current into the grid

Context
The choice of a regular living room with access to a balcony or similar would be available for a large demographic in cities in Europe. The illustrations suggests that this hardware part, that require some work by the customer, is not necessary complicated when the right technology is implemented in your home.

Background
Anne Galloway, explored the use of the blog format quite extensively in her Ph.D. dissertation on Urban computing and Locative media that ended in 2008. While working on the academic paper she maintained a blog throughout the process and published more than 2000 articles in an eight year period.[1] Her view on the blog format went through a revolution over the course of this process and in an academic setting she discovered the blog to be a

tool for focusing, for exchanging information and being part of a discussion which potentially extends beyond the academic community … [A] tool with which to think about [my] research, its values, connections and links to other aspects of the world.[2]

Later she returns to Mortensen and Walker to further point out that a keeping a blog

straddle the boundaries between publication and process, between writing towards others and writing for oneself. A weblog is always both for oneself and for one’s readers. If it were only for oneself, a private diary would be more useful. If it were only for readers, and not a tool for oneself, a more polished and finished form of publication would probably be more appropriate.[2]

The ambiguity stemming from the personal expression in writing personal, informal narratives known from diaries to at the same time write for an audience is my fascination with the blog format. Balancing the personal versus official while writing for the thesis have been tricky and might result in sudden changes in the tone in the voice. Galloway writes that this type of ambiguity is valuable if you are aware of this. Then you get both into the mindset of the researcher and his/hers personal viewpoints as well as the ongoing research as in the field diary of an anthropologists.

The participatory nature of writing, response and counter-argument on blogs allows for ongoing debate, critical refinement and thinking-in-process. In this sense, what is rarely acknowledged about blogging is how much it contributes to and mirrors traditional scholarly practice rather than threatening it.[3]

The difficulty here is due to the fact that blogs sit irregularly between familiar modes of address, never quite addressing a person (dialogue), never quite addressing a crowd (speech, public address), never quite speaking to oneself (diary, monologue, soliloquy)— and no one struggles more with this ambiguity, this awkwardness of address, than bloggers themselves … [B]logs appear to be shifting the balance of personality and impersonality in the operation of publics and in the production of public subjects[4].

Two blogs
As I started this project by publishing my research on my regular blog and i felt that worked quite well I chose on a later stage to split the content in two separate sites. This was done to contain the diploma separated from unrelated posts.

1. Galloway, A. (2008, May 5). Dissertation. Retrieved April 15, 2009, from purselipsquarejaw.org: http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/dissertation/galloway_phd_ch3.pdf
2. Mortensen, T., & Walker, J. W. (2002). Blogging thoughts. Researching ICTs in context (pp. 249-279). Oslo: InterMedia
3. Gregg and Melissa (2006). Feeling ordinary: Blogging1 as conversational scholarship. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 20(2):147-160.
4. Cohen, K.R. (2006) “A Welcome for Blogs.” Continuum: Journal of Media &
   Culture Studies 20(2): 161–173.

This diagrammatic representation show how how energy in various forms are utilized in my apartment building. The number of apartments can be multiplied by 40 or so. The dotted green lines show what you can (also in near future) add to this by installing your own metering service. Due to the low variation in energy prices prices in Norway are these metering services poorly implemented by utilities (see also[1]).

Structure
Mapping these connections makes the overall vertical nature of contemporary energy distribution quite visible. A change in the paradigm from a vertical centralized production system to a horizontal energy sharing system would probably have great influence, at least on this map. The 3rd party metering companies also signals the beginning of parasitical entities that flatten the structure without any need for policy change or negotiation with the utilities.

1. Darby, S. (2006). The effectiveness of feedback on Energy consumption. Oxford: University Of Oxford.

An easy to read article that gives a good overview over current situation, in the US at least, and pointer to the road ahead.

… regulators in dozens of states began to implement decoupling, a policy that rewards utilities for coming in below generation targets. Suddenly, companies could profit by promoting efficiency[1].

This quote from the article suggests the benefits of changing the behaviour of power generators from maximum production to maximum efficiency. Schemes like that would have a great impact if realised all over the world.

The article covers seven suggestions to make the future electricity grid better. Some of the topics touch the ones covered in my ongoing diploma. Helping the end user produce electricity and making conservation of electricity easy are two such examples.

1. Koerner, B. I. (2009, March 03). Power to the People: 7 Ways to Fix the Grid, Now. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-04/gp_intro

So.. what would wires say?

I want more of this. Please?

1. Norman, D. A. (1998). The Invisible Computer. London: MIT Press.
2. Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware. Berkley: New Riders.
3. Sterling, B. (2005). Shaping Things. London: MIT Press

Direct Manipulation
As we all know these old circuit breaker panels they are rather simple in operation. When a fuse is blown you unscrew it and replaces it with a new one.

The standard analogue breaker panel

Indirect Manipulation
The idea is that I do not want to directly manipulate the hardware, I would like an advanced interface that lets me do what ever i want to. Ofcourse it would need a connection to the hardware, but that is for the engineers to figure out!

Additional layer of communication

Energy Dashboards
The utilities that either have automatic meter readings and many that does not (requires manual readings) have fallen in love with various forms of energy dashboards. Some are real and some are just available as future concepts. Finding the utilities energy dashboards are somewhat difficult, they usually reserve their dashboard for local customers (but might have a video of it) and the independent ones requires that you buy some equipment for it to work.

Haflsund

This is my dashboard. They have some additional functions like comparing consumption to previous years and projected cost etc., but the graphing of actual consumption (manually entered) is the most interesting. As you can see there is a sudden spike, but that is another story. As this is my primary experience with energy dashboards I think we have a long way to go. It has far too little detail, which is not surprising as manual reporting is only required 6 times a year. Anything in between or a missing report is guesstimated. Without real time, frequent and detailed reports it has little value for me. I think I can imagine my consumption graphed over a few data points without this dashboard.

BTW: Received an email seconds ago from them plotting their status on smart metering: They offer a smart meter reading values by the hour (still not real time!). By 2013 all customers on their grid will have those, but for now I would have to pay 2500 NOK (279,36 €) to have it today.

Växsjö Energi

Watching this video suggests that not more than consumption over time is presented. There was some mention of a community competition, but not much on how it was carried out.

Logica

Logica talks a lot of smart grid and it’s benefits, but it is hard to track down any thing other than written material on their site.They do reference Växsjö mentioned above.

This nice presentation of their visions and ideas for possible uses in the near and distant future is worth a watch! Examples are “Mobile Smart Metering display” (possible a mobile application), “Follow me” energy billing (all types of energy is paid for and managed by same service)

Grid Point

This company seems to be very streamlined for operation in the smart grid market. They have several products on the market and they have a strong focus on the user experience. Though it is not that available at their site either, this company give at least a few glimpses on state of the art “energy dashboards”.
It looks to me that their core business is to sell big battery packs to store energy that can be released at peak consumption to balance grid load better. But then they built the smart grid services into and on top of that to extend their reach and value for customers. Smart move? More on the smart grid with nice graphics here (flash) and examples of dashboard use here (wmv) and here (wmv). As a first that I have seen they include electric vehicles in their grid with their own dashboards and services. The car as a key to home production of energy (Hydrogen economy anyone?) seems ever closer.

Even more dashboards from Cnet.

What did I find?
These added values to the energy services offered are not that easy to verify without actual testing. One thing that can be observed is that they are visual representations of consumption and production that is left to the consumer to act upon. From an Interaction Design perspective they look much similar to performance monitors on PC’s and their peers. At most the companies suggest they can compare various parameters against peers in a community, but imagination seems to end there. Imagination not at work at GE.

I am stuck with a feeling that we need to ask; what now/then? When everything is connected, measured and shared, what do we have? Pachube vocally leaves that open to the user of their API, but these questions does not seem to be asked or answered by the key players in the field.

/edit: Even more slick dashboards from various companies.

Based on the cheap current detector or the more expensive AC Clamp the initial idea was an attachment to a cell phone to share with others that you turned something off. This developed into a to a toy design that served children to earn money by being rewarded, in money, by their parents. The toy/service is sold by a bank such as DnbNOR that creates services around small money transfers by SMS. Parents make a deal with the bank to transfer a small amount of money each time the child switches off a light. The role of the toy was to “eat” wires and to detect when the current in the wire stopped and thereby signalling a gained credit. Then the funds are transferred. This creates a game where the child must balance the annoying aspects of switching light off with the reward of money. “Parents deal, Kids play!”

Artefact

The concept became more of an art project when the early concept was sketched. Research at that point led away from gadgets and into more service design and therefore was killed off.

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

This quote is central to a range of services that enables the concious energy consumer. The services build upon the activities of measuring, organizing and sharing your private energy consumption data. Originally this activity was done to keep you energy bills at bay, but today this is emerging as a collective effort to reduce global impact of greenhous gases. Statistics inform us that accsess to home energy information results in savings of 5-15% on the energy bill with comparable savings for the environment.

Google recently announced through google.org an initiative for the collection, organization and utilization of domestic energy consumption through Google Power Meter. Although they are not the first, it is worth noticing when the one of the biggest companies on collection, organization and utilization of data enters this field. With partners such as GE (selling fancy smart grids), Google gears up to push policy makers towards open data formats and information flow to enable competition.. Pros: Huge reach that, if sucsessfull, will have an impact.
Cons: Is everything going to be on googles hands?

CurrentCost – focus on measure, display (and share)
At home in UK CurrentCost looks to be one of the more successful after market energy monitors. It is also “hacking” friendly by including means of outputting the data in a readable format for sharing. Pros: Commercial availability is good. Easy to use. Many users.
Cons: Feels a bit too specific for the UK

Wattson by DIY Kyoto – focus on measure, display and share
This enegy meter is sold with a personality and a much more louder “i’m doing something good for the environment” statement. It looks like a flipped shelf and is quite radical compared to CurrentCost, but might not be as intuitive as the CurrentCost device. The visual identity helps building this brand. There seems to be some issues with the companion software called Holmes that have enabled a paralell software and community.Pros: Designerly approach based on awareness rather than cost/kW/h principles. Open.
Cons: Ease of use and accsess to data seems to be obscured by the design philosophy.

Power Squid – focus on measure and sharing
A Norwegian initative by Origo that aims to measure, organize and share data though it’s website. Basically they try to find the cheapest way to do it by just directly upload the information from the current sensor to the web and circumvent the local, presumably costly, display device. And they share their progress in a Do It Yourself friendly format.Pros: Trying to be cheap and ubiquitous.
Cons: Some way to go before it is commercial.

Pachube - focus on sharing
I bumped into Pachube while doing my resarch. It is a sensor sharing API/Community. If you have a sensor online, you can share it at Pachube and the sum of sensors are available through The Pachube API to manipulate and use as you whish! Connecting your washing machine to twitter can be done through Pachube: “Miele @la-zy im am done washing for you!” Pros: The Internet Of Things is here!
Cons: What to do with all the feeds?

*Starred items are some of the concepts explored further.

I’m also going through a round of interviews with families with different backgrounds. They are not complete or written in a useful format yet, but they are available from my skydrive here:

What have i learnt?
Based on just the three first interviews it is clear that knowledge and experience with renewable energy is very varied amongst the subjects. The different backgrounds leads to different motivation that have a big impact on their thoughts regarding renewable energy. In daily life unplugging leads and switching off lights seems to be a common trait. Again, the focus on lighting as an environmental culprit is a bit strange in regard of its low percentage of domestic electricity end usage.

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Technology
A recent article on newscientist.com sheds some light upon this issue with renewable energy. Various technological innovations are regularly presented as magic bullets that will change our energy production. The article by Colin Barras explain how quite a few rare and non renewable resources are part of this technology and if adapted at a large scale the technology could actually deplete some resources quite fast. Indium and Platinum are used as examples in this case.

Lack of crtisism
After doing quite a bit of research on the technology and politics there is not that many places one does find critique of this field, though size of installations in nature is a common debate. I have mentioned this in previous posts I have written, that critique of both old and new paradigms within any field of work are extremely important to innovation. Innovations in renewable energy are often hyped like magic bullets. The result is a Sci-Fi impression of a white and sustainable future. But again, as the article touch upon, the technology itself might not be sustainable at a larger scale.

1. Lemonick, M. D. (2009, January 1). Top Ten Myths About Sustainability. Scientific American Earth 3.0 , pp. 40-45

Conclusion
Knowing how many switches you press each day is interesting in that you change a something from on to off or the other way around. Why do you do this? Because, as I discovered, we press more switches than we think we do I am tempted to say that we change their state mostly out of tradition or habit. Inserting some additional information into the equation might result in change in behaviour. This information or decision support can be valuable as it is made visible at the moment of decision.

Just to add to the previous post on concepts: The limited electrical supply could be generated by a community wind turbine. What is the front end for the inhabitant of individual appartments in this configuration?

“A green action is something you do to reduce your environmental footprint”.

I have found a couple of examples that points to the direction where i believe designers can contribute with key knowledge to facilitate green actions. The right information at the right time might enable you to choose the green action over the unsustainable action in the moment of the decision.

Prius consumption monitor

from Boulder to Detroit 529
Originally uploaded by this user

The image of the screen displaying “Consumption” in a Toyota Prius is a good example for a system that display relevant information in the moment of action. The information encourages you to choose the greener action by visualizing the reward you would get by reducing your “pedal pressure”. The reward in this case is more miles per gallon (MPG), which is a common parameter for comparing how economical a car is to drive. The screen also display how you are doing on a longer time scale by plotting data from the last 30 minutes. This seems to be enough encouragement, at least for this driver, to adapt a MPG optimized driving routine.

/update – Honda Insight which will compete against the Prius also sports an interface that encourages economical driving.

“The Personal Well-Tempered Environment”
Dan Hill, who operates City of Sound, has outlined a concept (blog|video) where information is the main driver for doing greener actions in our daily life. The idea is to collect all relevant information on consume and contribution of energy at home and sharing the data. This enables realtime resource mapping at an individual level, up to the neighbourhoood community and even city level. Information from this mapping, shown at the relevant point of decision, could change behaviour at many levels in a society.

The concept is convincing when sketched into the context of a home. Information displayed at action points could have an impact on consume. Collected into an API for buildings the concept connects to a larger social context that might impact citywide behaviour. In his video presentation Dan argues that the dashboard idea is a bit “geeky” and would rather have information in a tangible format outside of a screen. Dan raises a few concerns when inserting a lot of information into our daily life. Will it be stick or carrot? How can it be designed to inform without creating stress or moralize?

This is at the core concerning that given the right information at the right time people would choose the greener action.

Robots living in Urban Trash (Art)

ppndr-s (pepenadores) from Scott Burnham on Vimeo.

Tracking powerplant emissions in realtime. With a laser. (Augmented Reality)

Nuage Vert, cloud only from HeHe on Vimeo.

Just some beautiful inaugural balls. Imagine an interface made like this. (Animation)

Nokia E71 launch / 6 Billion People, 6 Billion Colours from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

This video (explanation) confirms my suspisions; that the Japanese are not of this world and would rather not step (full story)on it. More sexy projects on this translated page from Robot watch. My robotic nerves was stimulated and further enticing would give me an appetite for a workshop in robotic senses – taste at Miraikan.

These french guys seems to augment reality in a clever way.

Their showreel here, beware of the kitch .. more nice reflections here and here.

Initial searches
A search for “Renewable energy” @ flickr @ google images @ youtube @ vimeo returns a visual overview of the more popular aspects of renewable energy. Wind and solar power references are abundant. Some ideologists presents their home systems, but they seem bulky and expensive, usually installed at homes or cabins with generous resources. Some goverment and commercial interest are also represented.

Keywords
There is a lot of projects that are tagged with various “green” keywords. “Echotech” “Greentech” “Green design” “Eco design” “Sustainable Design” “Green gadgets“. These words generate a lot of noise and double hits. And they seem to often describe something made of wood or some technology wrapped in wood or veneer. It is hard to find the good projects just based on a keyword search, but you do get some pointers to blogs that can be used. I found that adding some more keywords generate more precise results: “Green Design Gadget“, “Solar Design Lamp“, “Solar design device“, “Hydrogen design concept“, “Energy design concept“. But the results need evaluation. I’ll get bak to that in a later post. Is seems to be better to use edited sites like Technololgy Review that has a great overview of the current state of energy technology.

Observations
First of all i find that it is perfectly doable to enable a solar or wind power augmented home, I’ll even encourage people to do that. It comes at a cost, but so does a cool sofa too. Secondly there is a gap between the current available renewable energy schemes, that are engineered for functional performance rather than aesthetics, and the futuristic gadgets and gizmos that get a lot of publicity. But there are some exceptions, especially for small scale gadget solar (review) and fuel cell (review) chargers. The fuel cell looks like a late 80’s gadget, like the early cell phones, but this seems to be the case for many first to market products.

I’m not so sure these initial searches point to the direction i want to pursue with my “Untapped Energy” project.

Keywords
Energy, Distributed Energy Production/Conservation, Use Qualities, Home, Family, Everyday Life, Physical Computing, Mobile Technology, Communication, Design Research, Lightness, Renewable Energy

Introduction
The modern world as of today consumes resources at a pace not sustainable in the future. “Earth 3.0” (Rennie, 2008) has been launched as a term for a situation where we keep the prosperity of the industrial revolution (Earth 2.0, i.e. today) and return to a sustainability of the earth before modern times (Earth 1.0). By using design methodologies and looking into our closest environment, the home and family, I will try to find and create opportunities that can impact behavior concerning energy use without moralizing and restrict our prosperity, but by trying to move forward on constructive and engaging path.

Background
Distributed Energy Production/Conservation
The reasoning for covering my bases with production/conservation is that I see those topics as being closely related. The project might address just production or conservation, but a combination would also be valid to explore.
Energy production and use is a source for global attention. Today most of the energy is produced in centralized power plants and used by all sorts of end users with various consciousnesses concerning the energy consumption. Current initiatives for energy made from renewable sources have introduced the possibility to produce your own power in a decentralized way (Rifkin, 2002). What design opportunities lies in promoting a decentralized way of thinking about energy?
Title
“Untapped Energy” – for a person, like me, who are firmly plugged into the power grid it feels like renewable energy has a long way to go before it becomes natural in my household. We need some sort of “tap” that could deliver the sun or the wind right in our kitchen when we need it. The working title suggests that there is a potential for concepts to explore this field and maybe bring renewable energy closer to home.
Context
By using the family, the standard western family of parents with kids, as the base context for my development I have a familiar situation that lots of people can relate to. This context will help my project that its presentation will reach more people outside of the design community. The family as an institution also has a wide set of connections with its surroundings. I believe this will open a range of possible design opportunities.

Motivation
I enjoy research into technical fields that have potential untapped insights. Hopefully those insights can be converted to useful concepts that enable more transparent and approachable interfaces between man and technology. This involves writing as a tool to get a fundamental understanding of the area, but also practical design tasks incorporating aesthetics and designing experiences as well as developing concepts and products. Moving a foggy concept into a readily understandable and useful artefact is an interesting design challenge.

Ambitions
The Diploma will aim to explore and design concepts and ideas that aim to challenge existing preconceptions of current energy production/conservation and try to give insights into where this will go in the near future. What it not will do is to deliver a readymade product or service at a level where it can be industrialized.

Methods
These methods will be at the core of this diploma:

• Literature studies, including articles in magazines and online.
  • To gain an understanding of the field.
• “State of the art” research and evaluation.
• Surveying the field of renewable energy in homes related to technology and design.
  • To understand what has been done and why it works/not works. Together with” State of the art” research this will help positioning my project relative to the others.
• Inspirational research
  • Looking into ideas and visuals that not necessarily are related, but can serve as wildcards in the concept development.
• Visual Idea bank
  • A visual storage of the ideas encountered throughout the project.
• Physical and/or digital exploration of ideas and concepts.
  • To detail concepts to a level useful for testing and evaluation.
• Evaluation of explored ideas and concepts.
  • To gain insight into positive and negative sides of the developed concepts. Also compared to relevant existing concepts.

The two last points in the list will constitute the main product of the diploma.

Deliverables
During the exploration phase I will develop one or more concepts, digital or physical, that is used in my research and evaluation. I will also deliver documentation of the research, exploration and e-valuation of the work done throughout the semester. This documentation will draw on the resources gathered such as photos, drawings, blog posts other assets generated. The argument for keeping a blog is to write notes at a higher level than I would do in my private notebook. This helps me to formulate ideas and thoughts while presenting them to others in a readable format and thereby hopefully contribute to the discourse in the field.

Schedule

Initial schedule for planned tasks

Initial bibliography
Bell, G., & Dorish, P. (2006). Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision. London: Springer-Verlag London Limited.
Bonsiepe, G. (1995). The Chain of Innovation – Science, Technology, Design. Design Issues , 33-36.
Datschefski, E. (2001). The total beauty of sustainable products. Crans-Près-Céligny: RotoVision.
Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse. London: Penguin Books.
Igoe, T. (2008). Making Things Talk. In T. Igoe, Making Things Talk.
Löwgren, J., & Stolterman, E. (2004). Thoughtful Interaction Design. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rennie, J. (2008). Editor’s letter. Scientific American , 2.
Thackara, J. (2005). In the bubble. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Webb, M. (2006, October 21). 3C Products. Retrieved February 1, 2008, from Schulze & Webb: http://schulzeandwebb.com/blog/2006/11/21/3c-products/
World Alliance for Distributed Energy. (2008, January 1). WADE. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from WADE info: http://www.localpower.org/abt_mission.html

Even though the climate issue is a driving force for people going off the grid there is also the satisfaction of being self-sufficient, reducing the cost and the security in being independent. And in Tony Marmont’s (UK) case, who has invested £2 million in being self-sufficient, price is no object when becoming one of the first to own his own hydrogen production facilities to store renewable energy for future use.

At this point in time the Marmont case is a good example of why not all of us is becoming our own energy producers; it’s expensive and requires a lot of equipment.

Gaia presents the reader with a list of steps to take to go off-grid.

1. Calculate energy consumption
2. Reduce energy waste
   • Home insulation
3. Replace energy
   • Solar thermal
   • Photovoltaic
   • Sustainable grid energy
   • Wind turbines
   • Mini Hydro electric plants
   • Heat pumps
4. Energy storage
   • Hydrogen
   • Batteries
   • Back-to-grid

The above list is quite interesting and until step four they are within reach for many homes. The last step, storing excess energy for night, winter and other times when generators does not deliver, is still out of reach for most homes as the technologies are big, bulky and expensive.

Hydrogen is touted by various sources to be the future solution to distributed energy production and the medium of choice to store ecsess renewable energy[2]. Hydrogen can be used directly as fuel in fuel cells for chemical conversion into electricity. I’ll get back to that in a future post. Sadly, converting home made electricity into hydrogen and back to electricity is quite costly at the moment for the regular citizen.

Consumption
The article also presented an chart of what we use electricity for in homes. I found it intriguing that the most visible use of energy, lights (Orange), only accounts for roughly 10% of total use.
I added the Norwegian consumption for comparison. There is quite a big rally for replacing the normal incandescent bulb with the more energy efficient CFL, but that would only dent total energy consumption. More interesting is the big chunk going into kitchen appliances (Red), that the use in the kitchen compares to general heating/cooling (Blue) was a suprise for me. A thought i got was what if you reduce total consumption, excluding lighting, by 10% and then double the amount of lights, you would have perceptually increased energy use by 100% but still be at status quo in total energy use.

1. Vince, G. (2008, December 6). Life Unplugged. New Scientist , pp.30-34.
2. Rifkin, J. (2006, November 7). The Design Of Prosperity. Borås,Sweden.