A comparison of consumer perceptions towards smart homes in the UK, Germany and Italy: reflections for policy and future research

Abstract

Smart homes will be a key component of smart grids which can make significant contributions to Europe's transition to a low-carbon energy system. A growing literature on smart meters and demand side programmes focuses on the energy consumption and management services that smart homes offer. However, they can deliver much broader types of services, including assisted living, health and security. By including these non-energy aspects, this paper reveals differences in perceptions of smart homes in a cross-country comparative context to inform the delivery of smart home services. Public perceptions on the role of utilities and government in particular are important factors to be taken into account. The research highlights that policies should leave all paths open due to due to differences in householder preferences and acceptance of smart homes. Further implications for service delivery and planning are highlighted, calling for more interdisciplinary research in this area.

Keywords:

• smart home
• Europe
• energy management
• smart grid
• smart city

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Martha Bicket and Rosemary Davidson of Policy Studies Institute; Lorraine Whitmarsh of Cardiff University; Bruna Felici, Patrizia Corrias, Gaetano Borrelli, Marco Rao and Maria Cristina Tommasino of ENEA and Max Grünig and Sydney Baloue of Ecologic Institute, for research assistance, comments and suggestions. We thank Tom Watson for his comments on an earlier draft.

Notes on contributors

Nazmiye Balta-Ozkan is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental/Energy Economics in Cranfield University. Her main research interests include energy systems analysis; integration of environment, economy, environment and energy models; social construction of smart grids across space and time as well as its implications for equity. Nazmiye holds a PhD in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the principal investigator of the research project on which the findings of this article are based.

Oscar Amerighi holds a PhD in Economics and currently works at the ENEA Research and Strategy Central Unit as Head of the Technological Perspectives for Sustainability Service. His research activity focuses on the assessment of the socio-economic impact and market and industry implications of national and international energy and environmental policies. He has been involved in the management and research activities of several projects at both the national and the European Union level, and he led the Italian working group for the study ‘Consumer preferences for smart homes: a comparative study between the UK, Germany and Italy’, funded by the E.ON International Research Initiative 2012.

Benjamin Boteler works as a Research Fellow at Ecologic Institute in Berlin, Germany. His research spans socio-economic issues, consumer behaviour and environmental and energy efficiency labelling. He led the German working group for the study ‘Consumer preferences for smart homes: a comparative study between the UK, Germany and Italy’, funded by the E.ON International Research Initiative 2012.

Notes

1. The findings are based on the project ‘Consumer preferences for smart homes: a comparative study between the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy’. The UK results on social (Balta-Ozkan et al. 2013b) and wider aspects (Balta-Ozkan et al. 2013a) are discussed extensively elsewhere. A separate cross-country analysis on technical and economic aspects is presented in Balta-Ozkan, Boteler and Amerighi (2014).

2. The scope of the study does not include power generation within home spheres. This does not necessarily mean to ignore their relevance but instead highlights a gap in the literature on whether perceptions vary between consumers and ‘pro-sumers'. For a definition of ‘pro-sumers', please see IEA-RETD (2014).

3. For additional information and the full text of the document, see http://www.sviluppoeconomico.gov.it

4. See http://www.odyssee-indicators.org/publications/country_profiles_PDF/ita.pdf

5. See http://www.autorita.energia.it/allegati/docs/06/292-06allengnew.pdf

6. See http://www.enel.com/en-GB/innovation/smart_grids/smart_metering/telegestore/

7. We have adopted the OECD definition of urban areas with a population of at least 50,000 (OECD 2012).

8. In this study, ‘family’ refers to a group of people living together (with a legal union) and having children. ‘Pre-family’ groups are solely based on age and do not include whether they are willing to form a family or not in the future.

9. In Italy, the age limit for the pre-family participants was raised to 40 to account for the fact that a significant share of single Italian adults leave their parents' home relatively late (aged over 30 or more). In 2011, 42.2% of Italian unmarried adults aged between 25 and 34 was still living with at least one of their parents (ISTAT 2012).

10. Henry refers to a make of vacuum cleaner.

11. We purposefully use urban vs. non-urban here to acknowledge that there could be further differences beyond urban vs. town to rural areas that were beyond the scope of this study.

12. Just in time is a supply concept in which the necessary units are produced in the necessary quantities at the necessary time. Among others, see Monden (2011).

Additional information

Funding

The study presented here was funded by E.ON SE as part of The International Research Initiative 2012, titled ‘Consumer preferences for smart homes: a comparative study between the UK, Germany and Italy’.