Making, breaking and taking time: the temporal coordination of energy practices in households with children

Making, taking and breaking time: the temporal coordination of energy practices in households with children

TASA Conference, 24-28 November 2014 Adelaide

Dr Yolande Strengers

Dr Larissa Nicholls

Centre for Urban Research, Beyond Behaviour Change Research ProgramRMIT University, Melbourne

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Electricity pricing reforms in households

• Charging households different amounts for different times of the day

• Aims to better to reflect actual costs of electricity provision

• Aims to achieve ‘flexibility’ of energy demand

RMIT University © 2014 Centre for Urban Research

Source: https://www.switchon.vic.gov.au/flexible-pricing/how-flexible-pricing-works

Example of a time-of-use weekday tariff

Timing of electricity use in family households

Working parents and parents at home most vulnerable to financial impact from Time-of-Use pricing. Why?

Source: Simshauser & Downer 2014

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Making (peak) time

• How (peak) time is made and how practices make (peak) time– ‘temporalities are themselves continually reproduced, enacted and

transformed through the sequencing and timing of daily practice’ (Shove et al. 2009: 4)

• Peak period constituted and reproduced by the interaction and coordination of everyday routines


Overview of project methodology

• Focus on everyday practices and routines in family households, not energy– ‘what it’s really like in homes during busy times’

• In-home interviews and tours in afternoons/evenings with 44 households in VIC & NSW (parents/guardians)

• Interview findings tested in national survey with parents/ guardians– 684 complete responses– 547 responses eligible for this analysis (at least 3 pp/household)

• ~85% of interviewees and survey respondents were women (mothers)– A good bias to have?

5RMIT University©2014 Centre for Urban Research

Making time manageable: creating routines

• 90% of households surveyed strongly agreed (40%) or somewhat agreed (50%) that they relied on routines to make their days manageable.

‘[We are] consciously creating routines because… it’s just sort of to ensure that everything gets done.’ Peta

‘Routine is my saviour…it makes after school “do-able”.’ Mel

‘Consistency helps [the children] understand our expectations of them.’ Kim


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Making times of day: Weekday routine ‘activity periods’ in family households

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• Daytime routine: ‘stay on top of things’ or ‘get out of the house’

• Afternoon/ evening routine: family peak period

• Early morning routine: ‘like clockwork’

• Late evening routine: a ‘quieter’ time

9pm-bedtime

Get up-9am

9am-3pm3pm-9pm

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Weekday routine activity periods in family households

• ‘Fast time’ and ‘slow time’ (Humphery 2013)

• ‘hot spots’ and ‘cold spots’ of activity (Southerton 2009)

• Coordinated around institutionally-timed events, such as school times, work times and extracurricular activities (Southerton 2009)

• Enacting ‘cultural norms of busyness through their daily practices’ (Leshed & Sengers 2011: 912)

• Constituting a daily rhythm (Lefebvre 2004)

• ‘Syncing’ of parental and ‘kid rhythms’


‘Everything is now linked to what your child needs or wants or what needs to be done…your life rhythm is actually based on your kid

rhythm rather than the other way around ’

Centre for Urban Research 9

Family households describe their busiest time of day

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Understanding the afternoon/ early evening peak

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‘Time squeeze’ (Sourtherton 2003) or ‘compression of practices’ (Shove 2009: 19)

9pm-bedtime

Get up-9am

9am-3pm

Over 80% of households surveyed either strongly agreed (48%) or somewhat

agreed (34%) that the busiest time of day in

their home on weekdays is usually

between 3-8pm


‘Crazy time’: a ‘hot spot’ of activity

‘Between about 4pm and 7pm and so if any family members would ring I’d say “What the hell are you doing ringing in crazy time?’ Keira

‘Arsenic hour…it’s like from about 6 til 7:30 at night when children just are knackered from a day’ Kelly

‘Feral o’clock is usually about 5pm. [Laughing] And that’s usually when they’re all hungry and grumpy… five o’clock is usually witching hour around here.’ Lindy

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The late afternoon/early evening peak period comprised of tightly compressed practices

Routine reproduces and manages ‘crazy time’

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Practice interaction and coordination during ‘crazy time’

• Bathtime – calms children for bedtime, allows dinner to get done

• Preparing dinner – requires children to be doing something else or helping.

• Watching TV, using ICTs – frees up parents to prepare dinner, get other children ready for bed

• Chores and homework – need to be done after school/ work in preparation for following day

• Cleaning up after dinner – in preparation for ‘downtime’ and to ‘keep on top of things’



Making ‘down time’ or ‘cold spots’

• Part of the creation of the busy family peak period was about ensuring parents reached a quieter period at the end of the day

‘We can just sit down and just relax for a couple of hours…[it’s] a bit too frenzied sometimes ‘cause [my husband] and I…we have the running joke that we’re “rushing to relax”.’ Lily

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Taking time: time gaps

• ‘Time gaps’ arose when practice sequences of rhythms were disrupted

–E.g. a child having a nap meant a parent could do the laundry

• Time gaps were taken when they arose to avoid ‘chaos’ at other times of the day

• 83% of households surveyed either strongly agreed (30%) or somewhat agreed (53%) that ‘housework gets done whenever there is a bit of time available’


‘[During my daughter’s nap I] prepare dinner and cut vegetables, cleaning and wash clothes or something like that, I try to clean the house …if she wakes up yeah, it’s very mess[y].’ Naomi

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Breaking time: ‘normal’ disruptions

• ‘Disruption is normal’ (Trentmann 2009)

• 84% of households surveyed either strongly agreed (32%) or somewhat agreed (52%) that frequent disruptions to household routines are part of having a family

• ‘Normal’ disruptions occur all the time, –e.g. illness & injuries, guests, pregnancy/new baby, relationship

breakdown, employment disruptions, children’s sport/activities, school holidays, heatwaves, blackouts, bushfires and evacuations

–BUT daily electricity pricing rarely disrupting routines

Routine provides something to return to, a structural backbone to the unpredictable aspects of family life


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Response to TOU pricing

• International trials demonstrate modest demand shifting in response to TOU (3-6%) (Faruqui and Sergici 2010)

• 59 of 117 survey respondents (50%) on a TOU or off-peak tariff said their household did not ‘deliberately do anything differently because of peak and off-peak electricity rates’

• Why isn’t this response higher?

• Tariff and timing confusion

• Relies on reconfiguring the daily sequence and coordination of practices in response to price

• Routines are constantly being rearranged through other dynamics (e.g. changing children’s nap times or schooling arrangements)


‘[R]ealistically we don’t live in a time-shifted world…we work from 9 to 5, or 8 to 4:30… how do you change your routine to not use energy in the evenings? … we still have to bath and prepare our children for bed, so there’s not much choice.’ Kelly

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Breaking time with an occasional peak alert

• Interview question: If households were asked in advance to reduce electricity use occasionally – like if there was a possibility of more demand than could be met a very hot day – do you think you would want to/ be able to reduce your electricity use?


‘Personally, I would do it… I would definitely…here in Australia you have this … with the water…So you could have electricity ban, or “please be mindful”…That would that would work for me. I think calling on people, especially in Australia it seems that, maybe I’m wrong, but people would be willing to help out of national solidarity.’ Jill

Occurs occasionally and irregularly (mimicking existing temporal dynamics of the home)

No monetary or financial gain

No penalty

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Occasional peak alert: survey results

• 85% of survey respondents willing to reduce peak period electricity use if occasionally requested on hot days when there may be electricity shortages.

• Note: –The hypothetical critical peak alert response figures do not indicate

how many would actually respond to each critical peak alert–However, these figures indicate that households want to participate

in supply/demand problems when needed

Why do households say they will respond in these circumstances?



Occasional flexibility for the ‘common good’

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Because we normally leave the home on very hot days anyway

It would be easy

It would be fun or educational for my child(ren)

I am interested in electricity issues

Because I was asked to do it

To help other people or places that need the electricity more than us

To benefit the environment

To reduce stress on the electricity grid

To be part of a community effort

To help prevent electricity outage (blackout)

4.9%

11.7%

15.0%

24.1%

34.6%

36.6%

38.8%

52.5%

59.0%

64.4%

Reasons to respond to a peak alert

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Conclusion

• Family households make, take and break time through their everyday practices, thereby constituting energy peaks

• Daily price signals have limited intervention potential within these existing dynamics

• Rescheduling institutionally timed-events and altering ‘kid rhythms’ could intervene in daily peaks

• Other ways of mimicking ‘normal disruptions’ hold potential as a demand management intervention for households with children


Thankyou


• Consumer advocacy organisations for discussions and input

• Organisations and individuals who assisted with recruitment of households to participate in the research

• Consumer Advocacy Panel

This project was funded by the Consumer Advocacy Panel (www.advocacypanel.com.au) as part of its grants process for consumer advocacy projects and research projects for the benefit of consumers of electricity and natural gas.

The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of the Consumer Advocacy Panel or the Australian Energy Market Commission.

http://www.advocacypanel.com.au/

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New book!

• Edited by Yolande Strengers & Cecily Maller

• Builds on research conducted by the Beyond Behaviour Change Research Program

• Uses social practice theory to understand and seek to intervene in processes and dynamics of change

• Includes leading social practice theorists, Ted Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove

• 30% discount flyers available at TASA 2014

• http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415739634/


http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415739634/



Discussion/ Questionshttp://familyenergystudy.net/


http://familyenergystudy.net/

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References• AEMC 2011, Issues Paper: Power of choice - giving consumers options in the way they use electricity, Australian Energy

Market Commission (AEMC), Sydney.

• Faruqui, A & Sergici, S 2010, 'Household response to dynamic pricing of electricity: a survey of 15 experiments', Journal of Regulatory Economics, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 193-225.

• Humphery, K 2013, 'The time of consumption', in N Osbaldiston (ed.), Culture of the slow: Social deceleration in an accelerated world, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire, pp. 19-33.

• Lefebvre, H 2004, Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life, Continuum, London.

• Leshed, G & Sengers, P 2011, '"I lie to myself that i have freedom in my own schedule": productivity tools and experiences of busyness', paper presented to Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, Vancouver.

• Powells, G, Bulkeley, H, Bell, S & Judson, E 2014, 'Peak electricity demand and the flexibility of everyday life', Geoforum, vol. 55, no. 0, pp. 43-52.

• Shove, E 2009, 'Everyday practice and the production and consumption of time', in E Shove, F Trentmann & R Wilk (eds), Time, consumption and everyday life: Practice, materiality and culture, Berg, Oxford, pp. 17-33.

• Shove, E, Trentmann, F & Wilk, R 2009, 'Introduction', in E Shove, F Trentmann & R Wilk (eds), Time, consumption and everyday life: Practice, materiality and culture, Berg, Oxford, pp. 1-16.

• Simshauser, P & Downer, D 2014, On the inequity of flat-rate electricity tariffs. Working Paper No. 41, AGL Applied Economic and Policy Research.

• Southerton, D 2003, ''Squeezing time': allocating practices, coordinating networks and scheduling society', Time & Society, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 5-25.

• Southerton, D 2009, 'Re-ordering Temporal Rhythms: Coordinating daily practices in the UK in 1937 and 2000', in E Shove, F Trentmann & RR Wilk (eds), Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture, Berg, Oxford, pp. 49-63.

• Trentmann, F 2009, 'Disruption is normal: blackouts, breakdowns and the elasticity of everyday life', in E Shove, F Trentmann & RR Wilk (eds), Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture, Berg, Oxford, pp. 67-84.

• Warde, A 2005, 'Consumption and theories of practice', Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 131-53.


Making, breaking and taking time: the temporal coordination of energy practices in households with children

Environment

urban research

family households fast

breaking time

time manageable

peak time temporalities

households different

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