A Decade On, How Has the Visibility of Energy Changed? Energy Feedback Perceptions from UK Focus Groups

The Smart Meter Rollout Programme in the UK has required energy suppliers to offer new smart meters to customers to provide near real-time energy use information and enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. The provision was expected to result in meaningful energy reductions, but recent estimates suggest that these reductions may be as low as 2%. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of smart meters and in-home energy displays by providing insights on energy feedback perceptions from a series of focus groups with postgraduate consumers. In addition to domestic energy use, the study investigated how participants perceived their energy use at work and how they perceived the energy reduction efforts of their institutions and employers. A laddered and projective methodology was used to more deeply question participant perceptions and reveal their attitudes. The analysis of responses revealed a limited awareness around energy efficiency strategies and opportunities for more visual, mobile, engaging and target-driven interfaces for energy data. The findings also agree with previous observations that environmental concerns are not a key driver of energy reduction behaviours. This was shown by laddered questioning, not to be due to a lack of environmental concern, but rather the perception that reducing energy consumption would have negligible impact. A decade after in-home energy displays enabled a means of providing ‘visibility’ to ‘invisible’ energy consumption, little appears to have changed in the perception and experience of energy feedback.

A scoping review of evaluation methods for health emergency preparedness exercises

Objective: To review and analyze evaluation methods currently utilized in health emergency preparedness exercises (HEPE).Design: This study, part of a larger scoping review that systematically collected and reviewed published evidence related to the benefits of HEPE, provides a further analysis of the evaluation methods utilized in such exercises. We separately analyzed discussion-based and operation-based exercises according to their purpose. This addresses a methodological limitation related to the poorly understood relationship between the purpose and context in which a specific evaluation method is selected to be used.Results: In the reviewed 64 studies, a variety of evaluation methods were utilized for HEPE including observations, participants’ survey, and post-exercise debriefs. At present, the selection and use of these methods is not guided by any methodology, but seems rather arbitrary. No specific evaluation methods were isolated for any exercise type.Conclusions: The purpose of evaluation should guide the selection of evaluation methods for HEPE, and these are not context specific. If evaluation is for accountability purposes, such as to test organizational capability to respond, participant feedback should be collected in addition to objective data on performance in an exercise. Advantages of routinely collecting data from exercise participants to study their reactions (exercise feedback, perceptions, satisfaction with the exercise) and routinely conducting post-exercise debriefs (both hot debrief and cold debrief), are discussed to support evaluation for development or learning purposes in any context.