Know thyself: monitoring and reflecting energy consumption

In the last few years, a growing awareness has emerged on the impact that personal energy consumption have in the global levels of energy waste. Building on this trend, SmartMetering has focused on providing access to energy consumption data with increasing levels of granularity. In this position paper we show the results of a preliminary study of SmartMetering tech-nology in different contexts of use. One repeating pat-tern observed in our studies was the relevance of the connection between metering data and usage habits. We argue that the efforts of SmartMetering are incomplete if they stop on data visualization without further supporting the change of habits in energy consumption. To illustrate our ideas, we provide a set of design sketches that move the focus from energy consumption displays towards supporting changes in personal and social behavior patterns which are ultimately the source of energy consumption.