Monthly Archives: August 2015

Who are the pioneering users in energy efficiency service markets?

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This article studies the structure of the energy efficiency service markets in Finland. The research focuses on studying who are the most pioneering users of energy efficiency services. In a previous paper, consumer’s interest in different types of innovative energy efficiency services was identified. Psychographic characteristics were found that describe people according to their leaduserness, skepticism and mass market following behavior.
The aim of the present paper is to fill in the gap and deepen the understanding by studying how the most  pioneering users differ from other consumers in the market. We draw on the background of lead user theory by von Hippel (1995) and of diffusion of innovations theory by Rogers (1995) and Moore (1991). The research is based on an empirical survey conducted in Finland in 2013. The results show that the most pioneering users
differ statistically from the mass market consumers.

Full article:

Matschoss and Kahma (2015). Service interest and cluster membership – Who are the pioneering users in energy efficiency service markets?  Nordic Journal of Business 64, 2, 139-159.

Smart grid: Hope of hype?

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Denmark is one of the countries investing the most in developing a “smart grid”. This paper unpacks one influential national vision of the smart grid to identify what kinds of expectations guide the work of smart grid innovators and how the boundaries of the smart grid are defined.  Our findings show that the smart grid hype embodies several implicit expectations that serve to guide research and investment and to attract new players into the field. On the basis of our analysis, European policymakers might consider how their (intentional or unintentional) choices serve to create or maintain certain boundaries in smart grid development: for example, an exclusive focus on electricity within the broader context of a sustainable energy system. As serious investment starts being made in the smart grid, concepts like the supergrid, flexible demand and a broader smart energy system will start competing with each other.

Lunde, M., Røpke, I.  & Heiskanen, E. (in press).Smart grid: hope or hype? Energy Efficiency, August 2015. Online:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12053-015-9385-8