Demand response from residential customers' perspective

Demand response is a widely discussed option for facilitating connection of intermittent generation and making the use of energy resources more efficient. Previous studies have shown that the use of demand response enabling technologies leads to higher reductions during peak hours than only giving price signals to customers who can then decide whether they want to time their consumption accordingly. This paper studies residential customers' perceptions on remote load control based on a web-based survey conducted in December 2011 in Finland and responded by 2103 persons. The results of the survey indicate that remote load control is widely accepted, at least if it means lower electricity costs for the customer. However, based on customers' previous activity in the liberalized electricity markets, the actual activation of customers may be more challenging than the survey results suggest.