Digital energy visualizations in the workplace: the e-Genie tool

Abstract

Building management systems are designed for energy managers; there are few energy-feedback systems designed to engage staff. A tool, known as e-Genie, was created with the purpose of engaging workplace occupants with energy data and supporting them to take action to reduce energy use. Building on research insights within the field, e-Genie's novel approach encourages users to make plans to meet energy-saving goals, supports discussion and considers social energy behaviours (e.g. discussing energy issues, taking part in campaigns) as well as individual actions. A field-based study of e-Genie indicated that visualizations of energy data were engaging and that the discussion 'Pinboard' was particularly popular. Pre-and post-survey (N = 77) evaluation of users indicated that people were significantly more concerned about energy issues and reported engaging more in social energy behaviour after about two weeks of e-Genie being installed. Concurrently, objective measures of electricity use decreased over the same period, and continued decreasing over subsequent weeks. Indications are that occupant-facing energyfeedback visualizations can be successful in reducing energy use in the workplace; furthermore, supporting social energy behaviour in the workplace is likely to be a useful direction for promoting action.

Making demand side response happen: A review of barriers in commercial and public organisations

“…In organisations where energy is not linked to the core business -either because energy costs are relatively low or energy is not part of the production processnon-essential energy projects are often not considered organisational priorities [22,83,[135][136][137].…”

“…In the UK, in energy-intensive industries, energy costs make up 3.8% of operating costs, while in the non-domestic sector, energy accounts for 0.9% of operating costs [138]. In office spaces, rental costs [98] and staff wages [137] are considerably higher than energy costs. In large organisations, energy costs are often high in absolute terms, but in comparison with other internal costs, they are relatively unimportant [83,136].…”

“…Third, in commercial and public sector organisations energy issues are generally relegated to maintenance departments with little power and far away from the more senior decisionmakers [22,101,133,137]. Energy managers often do not wield enough power to gain the attention and support of more senior decision-makers within the organisation.…”

Ethnographic Research in the Construction Industry: A Critical Review

“…Grau et al (2017) adopted ethnographic methods to capture the responses of subject matters experts to statistical research findings. Spence et al (2018) used ethnographic pilot studies to observe the launch of a new tool; and Dossik et al (2015) undertook observation of virtual meetings to explore 'messy talk' and working in virtual teams. Hacker et al (2019) undertook 10 semi-structured ethnographic interviews, and Berteaux & Javernick-Will (2015) using ethnographic interviewing to explain quantitative data.…”

Promoting Sustainable Energy Consumption Behavior through Interactive Data Visualizations

“…A few other surveys [10][11][12][13][14] have, on the other hand, focused on computerized or digital feedback systems. These have resulted on further design considerations which need to be taken into account, including factors such as which kind of display to use and whether feedback should be given on demand (pull mode) or when deemed necessary (push mode).…”