ECEEE SUMMER STUDY PROCEEDINGS 93 Better of with less (energy)? Household activities during interventions Marina Diakonova Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3QY United Kingdom marina.diakonova@ouce.ox.ac.uk Philipp Grünewald Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3QY United Kingdom philipp.grunewald@ouce.ox.ac.uk Keywords demand response, household consumption, electricity, activity patterns, energy demand side Abstract Te dominant supply side perspective in energy research tends to focus on the downsides of (energy) consumption, its costs and the environmental impact. We seek to inform this debate with a reversal of perspective. What are the benefts of energy for the users and how does demand reduction afect them? We have collected over 18,000 simultaneous records of UK household activities, enjoyment and electricity consumption. Tese data give us novel and nuanced insights into the relation- ship between what we do, how much (electricity) we consume at the time and how this afects our sense of enjoyment. Tree broad and interrelated trends emerge: 1. Periods of high activity coincide with high demand 2. Periods of high demand coincide with greater enjoyment (!) 3. Interventions to reduce demand can lead to reductions in demand, but also afect activities and enjoyment Our ongoing research on demand interventions found that requests to reduce demand during peak periods (57pm) led to 15 % reduction in load. Food related activities have been identifed as particularly relevant during peak demand. Tey tend to get shifed or suppressed and substituted with other activities to compensate. For some, this can lead to increases in enjoyment, while others have their enjoyment reduced, especially where ‘quality time’ activities are scarifed during such interventions. While the overall trend is for periods of high consumption to be more enjoyable, there are important nuances to consider. We will present high-energy low-enjoyment patterns as well as low-energy high-enjoyment activities. Interventions to reduce the former or increase the latter may hold the key to more ac- ceptable public policies and may even increase well-being. Tree activities that stand out as the most enjoyable are read- ing, socialising and sleeping. Tese are also among the least en- ergy consuming. Instead of denying or penalising energy use, en- couraging activities like reading, socialising and sleeping could bring about a wide range of benefts, aside from displacing less enjoyable, costly and environmentally harmful demands. Introduction With dramatic reductions in the cost of renewable generation, a key challenge for the decarbonisation of electricity may shif from the cost of generation itself, towards the cost of ensuring that electricity can be provided to meet demand in time and space. Signifcant costs for storage or other means of fexibility may have to be born by electricity users if demand patterns do not change, or – as projected in many parts of the world – electri- fcation of heating and transport could increase peak demands further. Demand response is a popular notion to minimise these costs. However, the dynamics underlying current and poten- tial future load profles are not well understood, inhibiting our ability to project how far demand side response measure may contribute towards system integration of signifcant shares of renewables.