IHD simulation - P001

P001

Ranking appliances:

Asked for clarification about the hot water heater
Used technical knowledge to help rank appliances (i.e. because the TV uses cathodes and anodes, it shouldn’t use that much energy)
AC consumes a lot because people I know have higher rent when they install an AC, and when they don’t usually pay for their electricity bill
Realized half way through that the question was asking about usage for 10 min of use instead of over a course of a month

Q319/827 Cost of electricity

Did not understand the question because she answered this as what time of day do people use the most electricity instead of when it costs the utility the most to provide electricity
Explained scenarios of the typical day in the life of someone using electricity at different times of the day
Once seeing the second question about when people use the most electricity, she understood that her answers might be the same as what she answered in the previous question
Understood that the relationship between people using the most electricity and that the price should be more expensive
Had to tell her that the last question was asking about the utility rather than customers

Q321

Q828

Answered power rating is the energy per unit time of the appliance – understood that energy consumed was power rating x time used

Q257

She did not know that the cost of a kWh changes from hour to hour
Did not know the answer to the question, but understood what the question was asking
Guessed $5

Q824 Energy saving ranking

Was confused about the timeline of the energy saving ranking questions (i.e. asked if you line dry clothes for five months, does that mean you change the temperature settings for only five months or the rest of the year? Do you change the water temperature setting just once or for five months? Do not leave a night light on all night for one night or for five months?)
Confused because there was no absolute time frame

Q304 IHD Intro

Gets the rough idea of the scenario and that it is referring to the Smith family and that they have a monthly budget for electricity use
The house specifications didn’t really mean much to her
Knows that she needs to see the changes in $ for each appliance by changing the setting on the simulation

IHD Simulation (kwh appliance)

Pressed arrows to change temperature but didn’t see change in kWh because she didn’t know to run it for # of hours (hours column header missing)
Automatically changed hours to run for each appliance to an hour
After seeing change in kWh for the freezer and refrigerator, she automatically knew that her ranking question from before was wrong
Continued to play with the temperatures for the freezer and the refrigerator
However she was not sure what to do after testing appliances out (i.e. asked whether she was supposed to set the setting to achieve the $150 budget? Am I supposed to rank the appliances on this simulation?)
Did not really look at the total kwh at the bottom in this exercise
Did not think back to previous question about $ of electricity
Hypothesis: people with higher self-efficacy have a more structured way of testing and learning from the IHD

Q296 10% reduction question

Understood that 10% was referring to the $150 electricity budget for the Smith’s family
Has a gist of which appliances uses a lot of electricity but didn’t know which ones the Smiths used to consumer $150
Gave answers based on generalizations rather than calculations
Used some of the statements from the energy saving ranking question as well as some information she got from the simulation

Q862 Rank by use

Q868 / 869 Cost of electricity

Q873 Saving ranking

Q300 General suggestions

Hypothesis guess: We want to see how the IHD would work and how people would respond in the market