Understanding the timing of energy demand through time use data: Time of the day dependence of social practices

The time dependence of social practices at specific points of the day shapes the timing of energy demand. This paper aims to assess how dependent energy-related social practices in the household are in relation to the time of the day. It analyses the 2005 UK Office for National Statistics National Time Use Survey making use of statistically-derived time dependence metrics for six social practice: preparing food, washing, cleaning, washing clothes, watching TV and using a computer. The focus is on social practices over temporal scales of different days of the week and months of the year. The main findings show that: washing has the highest value for the time dependence metric; using computers is the least time-dependent practice; Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays have the highest time dependence for all practices; and certain energy-related practices have higher seasonal dependence than others.