Hi everyone, my name is Zeynep. I'm a final year PhD student from Singapore
University of Technology and Design. In this presentation, I will be talking about
our study on user perceptions and adoption of plug load management systems in the workplace.
To start with the definitions of plug loads, they refer to any kind of electrical devices
that can be found in workplaces such as laptops desktops and monitors.
Today plug loads contribute one third of the total consumption in commercial places, this is equal to
50 million kilowatt-hour per year. Based on a recent energy report released in the US,
more than 50 percent of the office users do not switch off their plug loads at the end of the day.
That results in an estimated cost of 2.8 billion dollars every year. Fortunately, in order to
reduce this consumption, plug load management systems were proposed as promising solution.
These systems allow users to monitor their energy consumption in real-time, provide interesting
energy visuals through energy dashboards, as well as control their devices in an automated fashion
in residential spaces. These systems are often known as smart homes as you might be more familiar
with. A few government field studies investigated the effect of these systems in the workplace
but reported poor results due to low adoption rates. Given that the workplace users do not
bear the cost of their own energy consumption, this makes system adoption a more challenging
problem compared to residential spaces due to their lack of motivation. With this in mind,
the question we investigated in this study is, how can we design future plug load management systems
to increase user engagement and adoption rates in the workplace?
To find an answer to this question and understand user perceptions on plug load management systems,
we conducted a two-stage data collection approach starting with focus group discussions
followed by online surveys. In total, we reach out to 101 office occupants from different age groups,
gender, industry sectors, and knowledge on smart energy management systems, as you can see in table
1. The main sections covered in both of these data collection approaches were participants'
current plug load management habits, general perceptions of plug load management systems,
ideal features as well as concerns and motivations. Based on the quantitative data,
we obtain our first key finding highlighted that 83 percent of the occupants lack motivation and
they find it troublesome to manage their plug loads energy consumption in the workplace.
When they are further asked what would motivate them to do so, top three choices were related to
company influence such as penalties policies and monetary incentives. On the other hand,
eco-feedback, normative messaging, and competition with peers were found to be less popular.
When participants were asked about the possibility of automating their plug loads,
78 of the participants were receptive to the idea but were concerned about losing control of their
critical devices, these are laptops and mostly their desktops. This finding led us to conclude
that users still want to be in charge of their plug loads, even when automation is in place.
When we ask participants about their ideal attributes and concerns on the use of plug load
management systems, we found that the most ideal attributes include a system that is easy to use,
allows for user control, and can be easily integrated with other building systems.
Similarly, the biggest concerns are related to system reliability, convenience, and losing
control of the critical devices. If we look at these six design implications together with their
high-level codes, the first one is external and internal influence, which suggests to supplement
the technology with organizational policies and workflows to demonstrate company support.
For reliability, it is important to prioritize features that affect the operation of critical
devices and introduce a mode of recovery in case of a system failure. When it comes to user
control, the system should empower users to have more control over its operations
and enable customization. Ease of use indicates that the system should be intuitive and simple for
system users. Furthermore, user appeal recommends the introduction of incentives and penalties to
encourage long-term adoption. Finally, the design implication on privacy suggests the encryption
and anonymization of the user's data to minimize data leakage. That's all for this presentation.
Thank you so much for your attention. If you want to know more about this work,
you can check out our research poster above. Hope to see you at the virtual event. Have a good day!