Exploring Mental Representations of Home Energy Practices and Habitual Energy Consumption

Domestic energy consumption is the product of many different behaviours and decisions made by householders. Current energy interventions, such as smart meters, do not account for such variation and do not consider how householders themselves understand the systems that use energy within their homes. We present two studies which seek to address this issue. Study 1 explored mental representations of domestic energy use through categorisation. Study 2 presents survey data collected as part of a larger interdisciplinary project which reveal that a range of energy consumptive behaviours are indeed influenced by habits and other psychological constructs to different extents. The combined findings have implications for the design of energy reduction interventions and energy policies.