In light of the understanding that a smart grid will never be smarter than its users, the project focuses on the role of electricity consumers and prosumers in the smart grid. The transition to a sustainable energy system both affects and makes demands on electricity users. Thus, conditions need to be created for them to contribute, directly or indirectly, to a more efficient and flexible electricity consumption and self-produced electricity. Against this background, the overall aim of the project is to assess the potential and impact of different incentives in these respects, to increase knowledge on electricity consumers’ and prosumers’ drivers and barriers in this context as well as to study their need for feedback and technical solutions in terms of products and services to these ends.
The research that is conducted in the project is to a large extent applied and empirical in the sense that its results are not generated in lab environment, but in the field as well as for and of those actors and users who are its recipients. De studies that the project covers combine several qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches, such as interviews and focus groups as well as surveys and analyses of consumption and production data respectively. The project is conducted as part of a number of different collaboration- and demonstration projects on smart grids with partners from the academy as well as the public and the private sector.
