Call for Expressions of Interest:
“Shifting Routines, Changing Demand”: A workshop on the dynamics of household energy demand during daily and network peaks
DEMAND Centre, Lancaster University UK
28 May (from 1:30pm) – 29 May (to 2pm)
Convened by Yolande Strengers, Ben Anderson, and Mike Hazas
The DEMAND Centre is hosting a workshop on changing household routines and the implications for managing (daily and network) peak demand, drawing on insights from Australian and UK research. The workshop will bring together policy makers, demand managers and key thinkers on the time dynamics of energy demand. As well as exploring current analyses about how demand is shifting, and how it could be shifted, the workshop will involve a series of ‘provocative experiments’ aimed at generating reflection on both current strategies and future visions of how daily and seasonal rhythms of energy demand can change.
Aims
Partially informed by the convenors’ close analyses of both UK and Australian household data, this workshop aims to provoke reflection and discussion on:
- How and why energy-demanding routines are shifting in time and space, and the impacts of these changes on peak demand and CO2 emissions
- How demand managers are attempting to shift routines (and to what extent, and in what sense, this is (not) working)
- What other programs and policies might shift routines to reduce demand
Registering your interest to attend
To register your interest in attending this workshop, please send through a one-page document which includes:
- 250 words outlining your interest, experience, and/or involvement with shifting routines/ changing demand (required for academic attendees only)
- a brief bio suitable for circulating to other participants.
Places are strictly limited. Please send through your expression of interest to Ben Anderson by 15 April 2014.
Accepted participants will have 1 night accommodation covered by the DEMAND Centre and we may be able to assist with travel costs if you need a contribution (please indicate this on your expression of interest).
About the convenors
Yolande Strengers
Yolande is a Visiting Researcher at the DEMAND Centre and a Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, Australia, in the school of Global Urban and Social Studies. Her research is clustered around a series of applied research projects carried out in Australia, and focused on smart technologies, energy demand and sustainability. At RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, Yolande co-leads the Beyond Behaviour Change Research Program, which works with project partners to identify ways of intervening in practices to achieve sustainability outcomes. Yolande has recently published a book on ‘Smart Energy Technologies in Everyday Life’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
Mike Hazas
Mike is a lecturer in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University. Working across the domains of thermal comfort, cooking, and digital media and IT, a defining feature of Mike’s research is to combine quantitative sensor data (mains socket energy, room occupancy) with participant’s qualitative accounts (interviews, diary exercises) to reach new understandings of how energy impacts underpin and uphold everyday life. Mike co-directs the Socio-Digital Sustainability research group based in the School.
Ben Anderson
Ben is a Senior Research Fellow in the Sustainable Energy Research Centre at the University of Southampton. His main research interest is the relationship between social practices and infrastructural change with a particular focus on resource (energy, water) consumption, micro-social resilience and sustainable living with cross-cutting interests in temporal and spatial variation. He pursues integrated quantitative and qualitative (multi/mixed) methods and/or ‘radical/big data’ projects which are committed to following the problem using whatever portfolio of empirical tools is appropriate.