Understanding household energy consumption behavior: The contribution of energy big data analytics

Understanding and changing household energy consumption behavior are considered as effective ways to improve energy efficiency and promote energy conservation. With the increasing penetration of conventional and emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) in energy sector, traditional energy systems are being digitized. The energy big data provides a new way to analyze and understand individuals׳ energy consumption behavior, and thus to improve energy efficiency and promote energy conservation. We first propose a framework of the interdisciplinary research of energy, social and information science, which includes energy social science, social informatics and energy informatics. Then, different dimensions and different research paradigms of household energy consumption behavior are presented. Household energy consumption behavior can be analyzed in time dimension, user dimension and spatial dimension. The economic paradigm (including demand response) and the behavior-oriented paradigm (including intervention strategies) are two major research streams of household energy consumption behavior. Finally, the “4V” characteristics (i.e., volume, velocity, variety and value) of energy big data are discussed.