research-article

Push-Pull Energy Futures: Using Design to Discuss Agency in Distributed Energy Systems

Authors:

Larissa Pschetz,

Luis Lourenço Soares,

Esteban Serrano,

Joe RevansAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Pages 1341 - 1350

https://doi.org/10.1145/3357236.3395551

Published: 03 July 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Distributed energy resources are expected to radically change the way energy is produced and distributed through decentralised generation and storage. Current distributed energy models tend to hide the complexity of these systems in order to improve ease of use, while restricting people's participation to predefined roles of passive users who can benefit from more reliable infrastructures, more competitive prices, and more access to sustainable energy. In this paper, we question these roles and present the Karma Kettle, an open-ended device that aims to explore perceptions of different levels of agency in distributed energy resources. A study of the Karma Kettle with 20 residents of a block of flats in the UK reveals strategies and values of these residents, the effectiveness of the Karma Kettle to inspire discussion on levels of agency, and how these systems could be designed to promote more participatory approaches in distributed energy systems.

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Cited By

Jensen VChristensen EHansen NJensen R(2024)A Year in Energy: Imagining Energy Community Participation with a Collaborative Design FictionProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685355(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685355
Dixon BChen YSerrano EPschetz L(2023)Exploring Critical Scenarios of Algorithmic Energy Distribution with the Karma Kettle GameCompanion Publication of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563703.3596655(266-269)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563703.3596655
Ferreira MCoelho MNisi VJardim Nunes NSas CMaiden N(2021)Climate Change Communication in HCI: a Visual Analysis of the Past DecadeProceedings of the 13th Conference on Creativity and Cognition10.1145/3450741.3466774(1-16)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450741.3466774
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Push-Pull Energy Futures: Using Design to Discuss Agency in Distributed Energy Systems
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Interaction design

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

July 2020

2264 pages

ISBN:9781450369749

DOI:10.1145/3357236

General Chairs:
Ron Wakkary
Simon Fraser University, CA and Eindhoven University of Technology, NL
,
Kristina Andersen
Eindhoven University of Technology, NL
,
Program Chairs:
Will Odom
Simon Fraser University, CA
,
Audrey Desjardins
University of Washington, USA
,
Marianne Graves Petersen
Aarhus University, DK

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 July 2020

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Research Councils UK

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DIS '20

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SIGCHI

DIS '20: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2020

July 6 - 10, 2020

Eindhoven, Netherlands

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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Cited By

Jensen VChristensen EHansen NJensen R(2024)A Year in Energy: Imagining Energy Community Participation with a Collaborative Design FictionProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685355(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685355
Dixon BChen YSerrano EPschetz L(2023)Exploring Critical Scenarios of Algorithmic Energy Distribution with the Karma Kettle GameCompanion Publication of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563703.3596655(266-269)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563703.3596655
Ferreira MCoelho MNisi VJardim Nunes NSas CMaiden N(2021)Climate Change Communication in HCI: a Visual Analysis of the Past DecadeProceedings of the 13th Conference on Creativity and Cognition10.1145/3450741.3466774(1-16)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450741.3466774
Tallyn ERevans JMorgan EFisken KMurray-Rust DKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)Enacting the Last Mile: Experiences of Smart Contracts in Courier DeliveriesProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445525(1-14)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445525

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