ipower: personas

Personas- Know Your Customers

Innovation Toolbox:

The Innovation Toolbox

Personas- Know your customers

By Ipower WP6DTI - Danish Technological Institute

Content6 AN INTRODUCTION7 HOW TO USE THE TOOLBOX10 INTRODUCTION TO PERSONAS11 HOW TO USE IT IN YOUR COMPANY?14 MRS. DO-THE-RIGHT-THING16 LIFESTYLER18 AUTONOMOUS SCEPTIC20 RATIONAL MAN22 LEAD TECHNOLOGIST24 TECHNOLOGY SHY26 INSTALLATION CONTRACTOR28 PROSUMPTION OPTIMIZERS30 PERSONAS: TEMPLATE31 USER SEGMENTATIONS34 RECOMMENDATIONS36 REFERENCES

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Will the end users buy my new product or service? This question inevitably arises in every company developing and supplying new products

– and it is not an easy question to answer. When those products are potentially smart grid oriented and targeted at domestic consumers that might be taking part in a possible future market of flexibility services, the question becomes even more difficult. With the uncertain future of the Danish smart grid, the “technology-push” driven development and the domestic consumers currently experiencing the maximum comfort of on/off electricity supply availa-ble 99.997% of the time, companies that don’t ask that question will be ill prepared for intro-ducing their products and services to domestic consumers.

In this series of innovation tools we provide knowledge, inspiration and process guidance for you to investigate and answer that question by yourself. To do that, we have created four user centered innovation tools each helping you to investigate different aspects of the question above. On top of that we supply two appendixes for further work:

1. Strategic Scenarios: which possible smart grid futures should my company prepare for?2. Personas: What customer preferences should my products and services meet?3. Customer Journey: What customer experiences do my existing products and services pro-vide – and how can these experiences be improved?4. Business Model Builder: What value propositions can my products and services offer – and how can my company profit from delivering that value?

• Appendix 1: Nordic survey of smart grid projects: What have been studied and demon-strated already about domestic consumers in the smart grid?•Appendix2:A guide to perform rapid and cost-effective tests of the business hypothesis behind your products and services.

The tools have been developed as part of iPower, a ”Strategic Platform for Innovation and Research in Intelligent Power”, partly funded by The Danish Council for Strategic Research and The Danish Council for Technology and Innovation: www.ipower-net.dk.

An introduction

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How to use the toolboxThe four innovation tools are interlinked, and we suggest you apply the following approach for using them in your company:

1. Preparation phase:a. Map your customer journey: If you have existing product(s) on the market, use the custo-mer journey tool to collect and structure insights about the user experiences provided by your products and services. This process can take anywhere from a few weeks to half a year. If you do not have an existing product on the market, familiarize yourself with the customer journey concept as preparation for the strategic business modeling game

b. Read and start using the Personas and the Scenarios: Familiarize yourself with the perso-nas and the strategic scenarios, and begin using these for innovation activities and strategic discussions in the company. All the persons who are to participate in the strategic business modeling game should be familiarized with the personas and scenarios first

2. Business model building game :a. Assign and prepare a gamemaster: Prior to engaging in the business model strategic discussion game, assign a gamemaster to read and understand the rules, the tools and the knowledge contained herein. The key function of the gamemaster is to facilitate the game, and he/she should be prepared for this and for answering questions from the other partici-pants.

b. Play the game: Start playing the strategic business model building game, taking departure point in the business model game board and the rulebook provided. The scenarios, personas and customer journey will be included in the game when instructed, and as the nature of the game is iterative, you may revisit all 4 tools several times, or simply play it through once for a start

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3. Going furtherTest the developed business model: With inspiration from the two appendixes provided, test the developed business model in either a demonstration project or by conducting several rapid, low cost tests of the initial and ongoing interest for your business model.

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What customer preferences should my products and services meet?To develop relevant products and services for the end user and improve the chances they buy your offerings, it is relevant to know the end users a bit better. By knowing their preferences and targeting your produ-cts and services to their known or unknown needs, you will increase the chances of a suc-cessful market introduction and decrease the risks of “teething troubles” or perhaps even market failure.

In user oriented development of products and services, two methodological approaches are often applied to increase knowledge about your end users and integrate know-ledge about end user needs in the design and development process: User segmentation studies and personas.

User segmentation studies attempt to group or cluster actual end users into meaningful user segments by qualitative and/or quan-titative techniques, e.g. questionnaires with filtration questions and subsequent cluster analysis to identify meaningful segments of end users. By identifying common features and preferences of each segment, these studies provide knowledge about possible consumer segments, which companies can use to either match their solutions with all the preferences of all segments, or provide a portfolio of solutions customizable for each segment. However, for products and services which are essentially aimed at an entire household – such as domestic smart grid solutions – it is difficult to know what the preferences are of the entire family, which means you cannot target a specific domestic smart grid solution for the individual consu-mer to ensure successful sale.

Personas are not necessarily intended to be statistically correct representations of a spe-cific user segment. Instead, they are fictive characters – often based on or inspired by research and segmentation studies - inten-

ded to present the data on end users in a simple, personalized way. With the rationale that it is easier to design for an archetypical person than for qualitative or quantitative data, personas provide a tool to expand the developer’s perception of the different users for whom they are designing. The indivi-dual persona is therefore not necessarily a large statistically relevant group of end users, but the entire personas gallery should encompass the majority of the relevant user characteristics and preferences your product or service should be designed to meet. This way, you can rapidly “test” your solutions against possible end user requirements in the early development process, before perfor-ming more resource intensive involvement of real end users (Nielsen & Nielsen 2013).

Several smart grid projects have perfor-med studies – or even segmentations – of end users: the key results of a few projects are presented in the final section “Smart grid related user segmentations”. The main contribution of this guide, however, will be the personas presented in the section titled “Personas”. These personas are inspired by the research performed in iPower and other smart grid studies (credited under each persona), but they have been exposed to an innovation interpretation, targeted at broa-dening the user perception in the design and development of new products and services. A few personas are presented without sig-nificant representation in smart grid user segmentation studies. They have been inclu-ded as they remain important end users to design for. Furthermore, we present a guide for how to use the personas in the following section “How to use the personas in your company”.

Introduction to Personas

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How to use the personas tool:Use it in the process of designing and developing new products and services:

1. For inspiration: Familiarize yourself with the preferences, needs and lifestyles pre-sented in the personas gallery and become inspired to come up with meaningful offe-rings that you may provide to one or several of the personas based on your existing pro-ducts/services or entirely new ones.

2. For testing: Use the personas gallery to rapidly test your product and service con-cepts for “pitfalls” – do they match the needs and preferences of all the personas? – and if not, how can you improve your solution to meet those needs?

Good questions to ask for each persona:a. Does my product/service address the motivational factors of the persona?b. Can my product/service solve the challen-ges experienced by the persona?c. Does my product/service cover special needs or preferences of the persona?d. How can my product reach the persona, e.g. through his/her peers?e. Will my product meet the flexibility prefe-rences of the persona?

3. For business modelling: Use the personas as inputs in the business model building game. See ”Rules and guides” for how to use them in this game.

Bear in mind that the personas do not necessarily represent a significant customer segment – as COWI’s quantitative user seg-mentation study concluded, the population is not as easy to put into boxes as we may think (COWI 2013). This indicates that one should not treat the personas as homoge-neous consumer segments, where targeted products, services and marketing campaigns will ensure successful sale to each segment. Instead, use the personas as a gallery of

identified consumer/prosumer preferences that your product/service could – or in some cases should – meet. The personas can there-fore provide inspiration for developing new products and for rapidly testing your ideas against the entire gallery of motivations and preferences presented.

Adapt and update the personas to match your own products and servicesThe characteristics, preferences and needs of the personas are closely related to what types of technologies they (are intended to) use and what contexts they are in. The personas presented here are derived from smart grid studies where heat pumps, electric vehicles, solar panels and smart home systems are typical technologies being tested and where the users are in dialogue with an external player who wishes to partially control their electricity consumption. If this does not match your specific technologies or ser-vices, you should adapt the personas gallery by selecting the relevant personas for your products/services and update them depen-ding on feedback obtained at the contact points you have with your customers (use the Innovation Tool “Customer Journey”, to identify and improve your contact points with customers). If you need to revise indivi-dual personas or add new ones, you can use the personas template presented at the end of the “Personas” section in this guide.

PracticalitiesThis guide has been designed so that you can print each persona on an A4 color printer. We suggest that you print all per-sonas and pin them on the wall above your favourite place to develop and discuss ideas for new products and services – or improve your existing ones.

How to use it in your company?

Personas case: Borger.dk initially developed 12 personas in 2006 to help the system solution provider design the internet-based self-services provided by Borger.dk. One of these personas was a visually impaired student, who in spite of his handicap was determined to solve the tasks and challenges of education, work and everyday life on his own. Although this persona did not represent a large user segment for Borger.dk, it was vital for the system designers to meet the specific needs of this persona (Engberg & Silberbauer 2006).

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Background infoSex: Female Age: 60

Family status: Married, with two children no longer living at home.

Education level: Higher humanistic educa-tion.

Disposable income: Medium-High.

Residential status and daily logistics:She lives in a single-family house heated by heat pump in a suburb of Copenhagen. Hardly ever commutes by car, but uses bike or public transport instead.

Real life story: An eFlex project participant learned that it can be beneficial for the system, for the soci-ety and the environment to use electricity at night. Suddenly, she was happy about her need to get up every night to pee, because it made it easier to start the washing machine at night!

”When we do something, it may as well be sustainable”

Mrs. do-the-right-thing

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technology.She cares about the environment, but within reason and with an eye to practicality. For instance, she buys organic food as long as the price difference is acceptable, and she has an interest in the climate debate and ‘doing the right thing’. She is interested in energy savings for the environment and in saving a little money. She has a low interest in technology, but chooses the ‘right’ technology when needed and uses technology to make informed choices.

Challenges: With a relatively high disposable income and surplus time after her kids leaving home, she lives an easy life with few challenges other than self-chosen professional challenges at work.

Dreams and goals: To ‘do the right thing’ for herself, others and the environment and to leave a safe world for her children and grandchildren.

Special abilities or inabilities: She’s not very technically skilled and prefers communication via phone or face to face meet-ings.

First or late mover: Relatively late mover, influenced by trusted peers e.g. relatives and friends.

Attitude towards flexibility?: As long as it benefits the environment and maybe even saves a bit of money, she is willing to change habits such as laundering at night.

Occurrence: Mrs do-the-right-thing is primarily based on eFlex’ “The Participatory” user profile (accounting for 18% of the participants) and COWI’s (2013) Believer cluster. This statistically significant cluster drops from around 40% of the population below age 30 to 25% between age 30 and 49, while rising to around 30% in age 50 to 60 and around 37% from age 60 and older.Source material: Antropologerne 2012, COWI 2013, and Insero 2014.

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“Sure I would like to do the right thing, but I have so little time for it…”

Background infoSex: Female Age: 34

Family status: Married, with 2 small kids

Education level: Further education

Disposable income: Despite high income level it is relatively low due to high fixed expenses and being relatively new on the labour market etc.

Residential status and daily logistics:She recently bought a house in a suburb of Copenhagen and commutes by car for prac-ticality

Real life story: N/A

Lifestyler

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technology.She used to care about the environment, but now prioritizes convenience in everyday family life higher through, e.g., commuting by car to work. She makes environmentally benign choices when it also concerns her children’s wellbeing, e.g., buys organic food and non-toxic toys. If the environmental benign choice is also the most comfortable choice and not too expensive, she would go for it. New technology interests her if it saves her time and adds convenience in family life.

Challenges: She used to care more about the environment, but now she finds it hard to find the time and resources to prioritize it in a family with 2 small kids and 2 full-time jobs.

Dreams and goals: Right now she dreams of more quality time with her family and for herself, and less time doing tedious household chores.

Special abilities or inabilities: To a very limited extent would she be able to change electricity consumption schedules from on-demand household-chores (e.g. cooking, laundering etc.).

First or late mover:With little time to investigate new technology she won’t be the first mover, but she could be influenced by friends, colleagues or other peers.

Attitude towards flexibility?: It cannot compromise everyday convenience, but if it’s easy to be flexible and enables her to do the right thing and save money, it’s ok

Occurrence: The Lifestyler is based on Insero Livelabs ‘The comfort position’ and COWI’s (2013) Lifestyler cluster. This statistically significant cluster rises from about 40% of the respondents below age 30 to about 64% of the respondents aging from 30 to 49 and 55% from age 50 to 59, after which it drops dramatically. This could mean that many Believers turn Lifestylers when entering the workforce and family life (the average age of Danish first-time mothers is 29 ), while reverting to Believers at a later stage, when work and family life become less demanding.Source material: COWI 2013, Insero 2014 and DST 2014.

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Background infoSex: Male Age: 61

Family status: Married, with three children no longer living at home

Education level: Craft-oriented education

Disposable income: Low to medium

Residential status and daily logistics:Lives in a house in a small village in western Denmark, commutes by car (or truck or tractor depending on task at hand)

Real life story: In two almost identical villages in Southwestern Denmark, all of the inhabi-tants in one village choose wood-pellet boi-lers while the inhabitants of the other village choose heat pumps to replace their oil-fired boiler. Why? Because one local ambassador of each technology has introduced (know-how about) the technology in the village, leading to peer recommendations and com-petencies within that technology in the local community.

“Why pay for something you can do better yourself?”

Autonomous Sceptic

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technology.He is not concerned with the environment, and rarely buys organic food, unless it is a bet-ter deal than non-organic – because bargains are the only deals worth doing!The local community is very important to him, both for social wellbeing and for solving everyday challenges. He cultivates his local network with favors (for favors in return) and by engaging in local events.He is mostly interested in technology he can use and repair himself, with a “self-sufficien-cy” mindset.

Challenges: He does not like new technology he cannot fix himself, but as technology becomes more advanced, it proves a greater challenge than it used to be.

Dreams and goals: He seeks to cover the basic needs by making good bargains and do-it-yourself solutions in replacing obsolete products.

Special abilities or inabilities: He is a true handyman and can fix most things himself – partly because he mostly invests in technologies, he can fix himself.

First or late mover:He will not invest in new or unknown technology unless his trusted peers from the local community recommend it – and new technology is not relevant until the old breaks down!

Attitude towards flexibility?: If it’s a bargain he would be interested in flexible consumption, even if it requires an extra (manual) effort, but the technology should not deprive him of his self-sufficiency.

Occurrence: Dominant in the DREAM project but also inspired by COWI’s “Sceptic” segment, rising slowly from around 10% of the population at age 30 to 45% of the population age 70+. Source material: DTI 2014 and COWI 2013.

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“As long as we can avoid waste of resources and save money…”


Family status: Married, with 2 children living at home

Education level: Business oriented vocatio-nal education

Disposable income: High, with higher house-hold income and relatively modest fixed expenses

Residential status and daily logistics:Lives in a house located in a minor town and commutes by car to jobs in the nearest major city

Real life story: One of the e-Flex participants had the ener-gy consumption of the family as a hobby and considered the smart energy management equipment provided by the project as a gift, allowing the family to engage in that hobby several times a day. According to the parti-cipant, every single unit in the house should be connected to the energy management system.

Rational Man

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technologyThe Rational Man is an economically oriented rational optimizer of time and resource consumption of the entire family. He tracks the energy consumption of the household, primarily motivated by finding and realizing savings for himself and the family. Rational Man searches for new technology that can help him identify important saving potentials for the entire family and provide feedback on their efforts. In addition to more automatic saving solutions, he is willing to conduct simple behavior changes for saving money (e.g. only charging electrical devices at night) – but he is not particularly preoccupied by the environment.

Challenges: Rational Man is mostly challenged by self-imposed challenges at job, by everyday family life etc. He discusses his motivations and effort for savings with the entire family: they all must take active part in the required change of behavior to save time and resources. When things get tough he seeks to rationally work his way to a better situation.

Dreams and goals: The optimization approach of the Rational Man applies to his goals as well, where he stri-ves for a good carrier, an enjoyable family life, and economic freedom to pursue his and his family’s interests.

Special abilities or inabilities: Being a rational optimizer, he is skilled at handling numbers, and if the data visualization provided by his energy management system doesn’t suffice, he takes the data to excel to conduct his own analysis – the consumption data is very important to him.

First or late mover:If he can see a potential for reducing the time or resource consumption of the family, he could be among the first to invest in new technology.

Attitude towards flexibility?: Even for smaller savings, he is willing to undergo minor behavior changes such as washing clothes and dishwashing at night.

Occurrence: The rational man is rather well-represented in demonstration projects, e.g. accounting for 24% of the eFlex participants. However, eFlex concluded that the participation and moti-vation for demand response was not merely based on economic incentives and that the participants economic rationales were complex and diverse. As the Rational Man could be expected to visit elpristavlen.dk to compare electricity prices and change supplier for savings, the 160,000 to 370,000 unique visits per year could be an estimate of the real life occurrence of smart grid interested Rational Men.Source material: Antropologerne 2012, COWI 2013, Hansen & Borup 2014 and DEA 2014.

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“I do this for the sake of the society – and to develop my professional skills”


Family status: Married, with two children living at home.

Education level: Higher technical education.

Disposable income: Medium to high.

Residential status and daily logistics:Lives in a house in a suburb of Copenhagen and often commutes by bike, but also car or public transport.

Real life story: An eFlex participant continuously adjusts the flow temperature and speed of his heat pump to optimize the energy consump-tion. In eFlex he uses the provided energy management system to monitor correlations between heat pump operation and outdoor temperature and engages in technical discus-sions with DONG Energy and other lead technologists in the project.

Lead Technologist

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technologyThe lead technologist is highly driven by his own professional skills and insights into the development of technology and society as a whole. He knows that both society and techno-logy must change and develop to meet the (energy) needs of the current and future gene-rations, which leads him to engage in and contribute to this development both at work and at home. Experimenting with new technology to learn and to develop his professional and personal skills also drives him, while economic incentives are of less importance.

Challenges: The lead technologist often challenges himself with projects in which he can activate and develop his personal skills. At home, however, it is a solo project that sometimes meets resi-stance from the family, who does not share his passion for technology and is annoyed when things do not work. And the family is dependent on his skills to make (his modified) things work.

Dreams and goals: To contribute to the development of a (more sustainable) future electricity system and to society as a whole – and to develop his professional skills while doing so.

Special abilities or inabilities: The lead technologist is highly technically skilled and can use the most advanced technolo-gies, as well as improve them.

First or late mover:A true lead user, who wishes to experiment with new technology, to learn and to educate his peers.

Attitude towards flexibility?: The lead technologist is quite positive towards flexibility due to the environmental, societal and economic advantages from it.

Occurrence: A very predominant user type in smart grid demonstration projects, e.g. accounting for 24% of the eFlex participants. Due to their high degree of professional interest in the topic, howe-ver, they are unlikely to represent 24% of the population. As bachelors or masters of science on the Danish labor market only account for approximately 100,000 persons or 1.8% of the populationix, the occurrence of Lead technologists is likely to be quite low.Source material: Antropologerne 2012 and Damvad 2011.

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“It doesn’t work – could you help me, please?”

Background infoSex: Female

Age: 76

Family status: Widow with 3 children and several grandchildren.

Education level: Vocational education, now retired.

Disposable income: Medium with a mix of relatively low fixed expenses and income based on pension savings.

Residential status and daily logistics:Lives in a house in a small town. Being reti-red, she has no daily commutes, but often visits her children and grandchildren by car.

Real life story: A Danish developer of smart home systems (to control heat, ventilation and light) once found a surprising insight from qualitative customer interviews: During a real estate deal, customers experienced that their smart home system became an argument from potential buyers of their house to negotiate the price down. Why? Because they didn’t like the information panel and because they were sure their parents could not operate the system, when they were to babysit the children.

Technology shy

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technologyThe technology-shy is rather sceptic towards climate change and other environmen-tal aspects and has little interest in changing habits other than to accommodate her children’s and grandchildren’s priorities of e.g. organic food. Technology does not interest her – in fact, she does what she can to avoid new, unfamiliar technology in her home.

Challenges: With a declining visual acuity and low interest in new technologies, her lack of skills and indifferent attitude towards new technology makes it a greater challenge to start using new technology for each time, and increases her dependency on relatives to help her use it.

Dreams and goals: To enjoy retirement with her children, grandchildren and hopefully great-grandchildren and experience them do well.

Special abilities or inabilities: Whenever a device or appliance becomes obsolete and must be replaced, her lack of tech-nical skills challenges her adoption of new technology.

First or late mover:Among the late movers, she would only invest in new technologies when her old equip-ment must be replaced, in which case she consults her younger family members for advice.

Attitude towards flexibility?: If it runs on a “set it and forget it” mode and saves her money she might consume elec-tricity flexibly - but only if her trusted peers would recommend it and take charge of the implementation.

Occurrence: The technology-shy has not been present in any smart grid studies or projects, although inspired by the sceptic elder part of the population identified by COWI 2013iii. The real life story is from DTI consultancy work for clients.Source material: Mostly a fictive character, but inspired by COWI 2013 and DTI consultancy work for clients supplying smart home systems.

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”I’m good at what I do, but those manufacturers sure didn’t think of us techni-cians when they designed their equipment.”


Family status: Divorced, with 3 joint-custody children living with him every other weekend.

Education level: Craft education: Plumber

Disposable income: Medium, with moderate expenses and medium income.

Residential status and daily logistics:Lives in a house in a small town, commutes by car (often company car).

Real life story: In the process of moving into a new house, one of the authors had a plumber to check the installations in the house, including the gas furnace. In less than 45 minutes, the plumber had checked and maintained the furnace, repaired a couple of defect radiator valves (free of charge), identified defects and calculated saving potentials by replacing the furnace and a defect central heating pump and delivered an offer by email to replace the whole thing (by communicating with back office personnel). He would furthermore

Installation contractor

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only recommend and install one brand of gas furnaces, as his company had chosen to specialize themselves in this brand, due to an extremely low fault rate and better war-ranty conditions.

Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technologyInstallation contractor is not particularly concerned about the environment compared to his everyday comfort and other interests. For instance, he commutes by car and has a Jacuzzi installed in his house, although he rarely uses it. He tries not to waste money, but is not prepared to change habits or lower comfort limits to do so. New technology inte-rests him, especially within his professional field and hobbies.

Challenges: Installation contractor is mostly challenged at work, where he finds it quite tight to deli-ver the promised installations on time and budget, and at home, solving the puzzles of a divorced family.

Dreams and goals: Experiencing energy self-sufficiency has started a discussion among the Prosumption optimizers and their local community of how they can collectively benefit from their own surplus electricity production: “The most awesome thing that we could do here is to collect it up, so that many units together saved the energy, so that the whole city could contribute to heating up a pool, where all the energy was being used to heat up water that was going to be heated anyway”

Special abilities or inabilities: Installation contractor is technically skilled through his craft profession and has strong opinions on the technology he uses when at work.

First or late mover:For technologies relevant to his craft, he is often among the early adaptors, once the tech-nology has proven its worth. He prefers having firsthand experiences to advise customers about the technology.

Attitude towards flexibility?: As long as it does not interfere with his everyday life, comfort and hobbies, he is willing to consume flexibly to avoid wasting money.

Occurrence: Installation contractor is mostly a fictive character, but inspired by interviews of heat pumps owners. Furthermore, a regression analysis by Epinion has shown that the two primary factors to make a customer purchase a heat pump are (1) that it is necessary to invest in a new heat source and (2) that a plumber or manufacturer guides the process.Source material: Nyborg 2014, Maagensen & Krøjgaard 2013, Epinion 2010.

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“I have a need to optimize ac-cording to my solar cells, ac-cording to what we produce ourselves”

Background info

Sex: Male + female Age: 31 and 28

Family status: Living together.

Education level: Bachelor of Economics and IT + Bachelor in Nursing.

Disposable income: Medium with medium income and low fixed expenses.

Residential status and daily logistics:They live in a house in a small village in the Triangle Region. He works daytime as a technical salesman, she often works in the evening, night or weekend, and both commute by car.

Real life story: One of the female residents in Insero’s Livelab has a lot of spare time at home during dayti-me, when the PV panels produce a lot. When their own production is high, she activates every possible electricity consuming device, to maximize the utilization of the PV panels.

Prosumption optimizers

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Key CharacteristicsMotivations: Environment/society, economics, technologyAfter having PV solar panels installed, the couple have become very attentive to their elec-tricity production and consumption. Since they missed the ‘net-meter agreement’, they are annoyed whenever they produce more electricity than they consume, as they deliver elec-tricity (almost) free to the grid, while paying for it whenever they consume more than they produce. It is a question of avoiding waste, but it also becomes a sport for them to see how much they can utilize their own production – and save. Their general interest in technology also encompasses technologies that help them optimize their prosumption.

Challenges: The Prosumption optimizers have few critical challenges other than self-imposed ones, and they have flexibility in everyday life, e.g., to optimize their consumption of different resour-ces.

Dreams and goals: Experiencing energy self-sufficiency has started a discussion among the Prosumption opti-mizers and their local community of how they can collectively benefit from their own sur-plus electricity production: “The most awesome thing that we could do here is to collect it up, so that many units together saved the energy, so that the whole city could contribute to heating up a pool, where all the energy was being used to heat up water that was going to be heated anyway”.

Special abilities or inabilities: With him being technologically skilled and her having a lot of time at home during sunny hours, the couple are able to move a

large part of their electricity consumption, either manually or automatically.

First or late mover:After experiencing the economic consequences of flexible consumption, the couple could be among the first movers of technologies making it easier to move consumption.

Attitude towards flexibility?: They are very flexible due to motivation and skills, but primarily in order to maximize the utilization of their own production, not to benefit “the grid”.

Occurrence: The Prosumption optimizers will mostly occur among residents with their own electricity production (either individual or locally collective), where PVs will be the dominating electri-city source. As of November 19, 2014, there are 89815 PV installations throughout Denmark, with Jutlandic regions leading in numbers. Depending on whether the owners will be com-pensated for own surplus power production in the future, the Prosumption optimizers could become a relevant user group in the future. Furthermore, the playful approach to energy savings and flexible consumption has been observed in several smart grid studies, e.g. “the curious” eFlex profile accounting for 21% of the participants.Source material: Hansen 2014, Antropologerne 2012, Energinet.dk 2014.

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Introductory info - Archetypal name - Drawing (instead of image) - Expressive quote Background info - Sex - Age - Education level

- Family status

- Disposable income level

- Residential status and daily logistics

Key Characteristics - Motivations - Challenges

- Dreams and goals

- Special abilities or inabilities

- First or late mover

- Attitude towards flexibility In real life - Real life story

- Occurrence

- Source material

Personas: Template

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Several interesting smart grid studies and demonstration projects focus on domestic users, of which we have found great inspira-tion in 4 of them and in additional interview material provided by the iPower PhDs. The results from these studies are presented in the following section along with key results on user profiles and preferences:

eFlex DONG Energy’s eFlex project involved anthropological studies of the residents in the 119 households included in the pro-ject, including home visits to 48 of these homes. With the purpose of investigating what incentives could be applied to make private households participate in load shed-ding in the distribution grid, the anthro-pologist uncovered 5 different user profiles (Antropologerne.com 2012):

1. The technical (24%)Highly technically skilled users (all men), with a thorough approach to investigate – and optimize – the technologies in the project. Already engaged in the electricity world, their motivation is to contribute with their knowledge to the development of tech-nologies and of society as a whole in a more sustainable direction.

2. The economical (24%)System and control freaks (mostly men) absorbed in optimizing the resource con-sumption of the family and avoiding waste. With a rational-economic approach, they seek to obtain an overview of the electricity consumption of especially their heat pump but also the rest of the home, in order to optimize the consumption habits of the entire family.

3. The curious (21%)Consumers (both men and women) with a curious approach to life, looking to learn, also about the development of society. They are motivated by learning new, also about the electricity they consume. In everyday

life, it becomes a sport to them to see how much consumption they can move.

4. The participating (18%)Idealists (women and a few men), looking to “do the right thing”. Already engaged in the development of society, they have the resour-ces, time and motivation to do the right thing for others and for the environment. While they are interested in the technology in order to learn what “the right thing” is, they lose that interest once they have learned what the right thing is and have changed their habits.

5. The convenient (13%)Consumers (only men) emphasizing on luxury and convenience in everyday life, to maximize time for career and family. Their motivation for participation was about saving money while doing something good for the environment. After setting up the necessary equipment, they leave all optimi-zation and management of the technology to DONG Energy.

The variety in the above profiles illustrates one of the conclusions from the project: that the participation and motivation for demand response was not merely based on economic incentives, and even that the participant’s economic rationales were complex and diverse.

Insero LiveLab 20 families in the village Stenderup near Horsens have been equipped with energy visualization system, solar panels, electric vehicles, and heap pumps, which will be remote controlled. On the basis of qualitative sociological studies, 5 typologies of users were developed by grouping user state-ments and identify attitudes and mindsets (Hofmann-Jørgensen 2014):

•Thegreenposition:Environmentally friendly motivations, expresses the aim of being a good role model

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for children and conduct a responsible life.

•Thecomfortand”easy-to-use”position:Seeks to optimize indoor climate and com-fort without hassles. It must be easy to adjust the devices – and during operation it should demand a minimum of attention. Low tole-rance of hands-on requirements. Service agreements are more welcome than a screw-driver.

•Theeconomicposition:Strives for optimizing the private economy. Return on Investments, favorable credit pro-grams and financial benefits in the short and long run motivate.

•Thetechnologicalposition:The technology itself and the investigation of its many features are highly interesting. Having new technologies is a part of being in touch with the progressions in techno-logical solutions. The experience of being a front runner gives a tolerance towards small complications. •Theuninterestedposition: No further motivation for or against the new technologies. No particular feeling of ownership. They have been pulled into living with green technologies, and they are satis-fied if the equipment gives the same level of functionality as they had before.“

DREAM The study “Energy in rural areas”, per-formed by anthropologist from Danish Technological Institute as part of the research project DREAM: Danish Renewable Energy Aligned Markets, closely studied two almost identical rural villages (demo-graphically and geographically speaking) in the middle and southern part of Jutland. On paper, these villages were the optimal candidates for a roll-out of heat pumps and electric vehicles: The majority of the houses were located outside the district heating and gas network and were heated by soon-to-be

obsolete oil boilers. The daily commutes consisted of short trips and short total distances. However, the anthropological studies revealed that apart from the obvious economic limits in these areas, sociocultural aspects such as local support challenge the introduction of new technologies such as HPs and EVs. Without identifying specific user types, the anthropologists uncovered motivations such as self-sufficiency and do-it-yourself-culture, independence and freedom-of-action and a functionality and anti-gluttony approach to investments in new technology. The anthropologist came up with an overall recommendation of applying a bottom-up approach for roll-out of HPs and EVs in these areas, involving local ambassadors as important partners in the process (Danish Technological Institute 2014).

iPower: Consumer preferences for temperature variations The primary quantitative and statistical material we have drawn upon is COWI’s quantitative questionnaire survey including 1000+ respondents. In a subsequent cluster analysis on attitude towards the environ-ment, COWI identified five clusters of which 3 were statistically relevant:

•Believers:Pro climate but within reason and with an eye to practicality.•Lifestylers:Pro climate but their lifestyle takes precedence, e.g. cars, food•Sceptics:Not decidedly negative towards the climate, but not pro climate either

Divided by their attitude towards the env-ironment the largest differences among the clusters were whether or not they commute by car (lifestylers always do, believers and sceptics rarely) and whether or not they buy organic food (believers often do, lifestylers and sceptics seldom). Further interesting observations include:

•Lifestylers are the single most dominating

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cluster in the workforce (50-65% depending on age segment), •MenfromwesternDenmark are more likely to be sceptics•Bettereducatedyoungwomen with higher incomes from eastern Denmark are more likely to be believers

One of the conclusive remarks from the study is that:

“it has proven difficult to separate the three segments based on socioecono-mics. Therefore, it would be difficult to target campaigns against the individual segments.” (COWI 2013)

iPower: PhD interview material and presentationsThe personas also draw upon interview material and selected presentations given by the two PhDs in iPower’s work package 6.

Sophie Nyborg (Aalborg University) - Through interview material from three smart grid case projects she has uncovered potentials, user experiences and barriers in the dissemination of residential heat pumps. One of the insights from her studies inclu-des a highly complex investment process, where consumers in existing buildings have to rely on advice from sanitary installers. But the quality of this advice varies greatly, with extreme price variations in offers on the same installation, which gives the consumer a perception of an uncertain technology and untrustworthy suppliers. However, the research has also found that the consumers greatly value the optimization that accompa-nies the external control of the heat pump. This alleviates them of the responsibility of handling the unfamiliar technology (Nyborg 2014).

MeikenHansen(TechnicalUniversityofDenmark) - Meiken studies the users in Insero’s Livelab,

where she investigates how consumers inter-pret smart grid technologies that include consumption/production visualization, and whether they accept the technologies that will include remote control. She has found a difference among prosumers with photo-voltaic solar panels: Some prosumers focus greatly on optimizing their consumption according to the solar cells, and those who are able to, are pleased. Others (who can-not optimize their consumption according to the production) are annoyed when they see the visualization of their production and consumption, where they deliver free energy to the grid while having to buy it back in periods when their demand exceeds their production. These preferences are especially observed with prosumers, who are not in on the net-meter agreement (Hansen 2014).

LimitationsWe have only constructed personas living in residential houses outside the district heat-ing network, primarily due to the available source material as well as considerations of the applicability of three of the cardinal smart grid technologies: heat pumps, electric vehicles and photovoltaic solar panels.

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Personas as a tool has its advantages and limitations. The advantages have been outli-ned in the previous sections, and this section will briefly touch upon the limitations of personas and provide suggestions for how to improve personas in the future.

The population is not as easy to put into boxes as we think.

As mentioned, personas cannot be consi-dered as an accurate description of large homogeneous consumer segments, at which you can target your products, services and marketing. In fact, segmentation of the population proves increasingly difficult, especially when segmenting according to demographics and socioeconomics. A few surprising examples include (Trendwatching 2014):

•Twitter’sfastestgrowingdemographicseg-ment between 2012 and 2013 was the 55-64 yearagebracket,growing79%•IntheUK,womennowaccountforthemajorityofvideogameplayers,andthereare more gamers aged over 44 than under 18.•Ifyoulookatthelistofthe1,000favouriteartistsfor60-year-oldsandthe1,000favou-riteartistsfor13-year-olds,thereisa40%overlap

This means that if you choose to design your product to match the needs and preferences of one persona perfectly, it will not ensure successful sales to a large segment of the population. Instead, use the entire personas gallery as examples of end users, and try to meet as many needs and preferences as pos-sible.

You develop products and services for a household – not for one person

One observation based on the analysis of the source material is that smart grid technolo-gies for domestic consumers are designed

for an entire household, not only for one end user. For instance, this means that even though people like the Lead Technologist exist out there, he has a family which in most cases cannot use the technologies at the same level as he can. If the technologies are either designed (or developed by him to become) too technical or advanced, his family becomes dependent on him to use them. What happens the week he is on busi-ness travel, or if the couple is divorced and he leaves the house, or when the (technology shy) grandmother visits to take care of the children?

Although it may not seem very exciting, sometimes designing for the “lowest com-mon denominator” is necessary, especially when it comes to user interfaces. But bear in mind that both user interfaces, products and services can be designed “modularly”, so a minimum configuration can be offered with access to – or possibilities of adding – more advanced features. In this case, a “reset to minimum configuration” may come in handy for later users…

The household is part of a community that influences the investment decisi-ons of the individual household

As emphasized in the DREAM project, the individual consumer and his household is part of a community – especially in areas outside the district heating systems. In some cases this community greatly influences the investment decisions of the individual household and individual consumer, and rol-ling out heat pumps and electric vehicles to “autonomous sceptics” in these communities may prove difficult without involvement of the community – especially without finding ambassadors of your technology in that community.

Even in areas without strong influences from the local community, the investment decisions of the individual (household) has

Recommendations

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proven to be dependent on the peer effect. Obtaining recommendations – or cautions – from trusted friends, relatives, colleagues etc. is for many people a default part of the acquisition process. See the “customer journey tool” and reports from the DREAM projectii for more information on how to address this issue.

Recommendations for future smart grid user studiesBased on the above, a recommendation for future smart grid studies on domestic consumers is to consider the context of indi-viduals, rather than individuals themselves. As you design products and services for the entire household, the household has to buy into your value propositions. Instead of loo-king at personas, a more extensive approach in which “familionas” or even “locationas” may improve the understanding of the com-plex rationales underlying the investment decisions of a household. One important aspect to include would furthermore be the quality of the house, e.g. level of insulation, need for maintenance etc. However, all of the above will dramatically increases the com-plexity of the studies.

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Antropologerne.com 2012: eFlex :: Fleksibelt elforbrug – En kvalitativ undersøgelse af hvordan deltagerne i projekt eFlex oplever hverdagen med energifleksibilitet” Report prepa-red by antropologerne.com for DONG Energy Eldistribution A/S.

COWI 2013: Consumer preferences for temperature variations, final report based on iPo-wer’s work package 6 activity: User preferences and price sensitivity.

Damvad 2011: Fremskrivning af behovet for ingeniører og scienter i fremtiden. Report pre-pared by Damvad Group for The Danish Society of Engineers, IDA.

Danish Energy Association 2014: Google analytic statistics on elpristavlen.dk provided by Helle Stisen, Danish Energy Association, November 12 2014.

Danish Technological Institute 2014: Energi i landområder: Antropologiske analyser i forbindelse med udrulning af Smart Grid teknologi i områder udenfor kollektiv forsyning. Results from the research project DREAM: Danish Renewable Energy Aligned Markets.

Energinet.dk 2014: Statistik og udtræk for VE anlæg. Last observed November 30th 2014 at: http://www.energinet.dk/DA/El/Engrosmarked/Udtraek-af-markedsdata/Sider/Statistik.aspx

Engberg, N. & K. Silberbauer 2006: Personas til den fællesoffentlige borgerportal. Den Digitale Taskforce. København, den 21. december 2006

Epinion 2010: Undersøgelse af potentielle købere af varmepumper. Danish Energy Association.

Hansen, M. 2014: Smart grid, household consumers and asymmetries - Energy visualisa-tion and scripting of technology. Presentation given at the iPower conference November 18, 2015.

Hansen, M. & M. Borup 2014: Survey of existing studies of smart grids and consumers - Nordic countries. iPower working report internally published April 4 2014.

Hofmann-Jørgensen, M. 2014: Work tool for marketing and understanding target groups: Typologies of future smart grid citizens. Project one-pager provided by LiveLab project coor-dinator Munna Hofmann-Jørgensen.

Nielsen, L. & K. S. Nielsen 2013: Brugen af personas hos danske virksomheder -2012/13. Report prepared by Center for Persona Research and –Application, IT-University, Copenhagen.

Nyborg, S. 2014: Transition towards ‘smart grid heating’: Potentials, user experiences and barriers in the dissemination of residential heat pumps. Presentation given at the iPower conference May 14, 2014.

Statistics Denmark 2014: Denmark in Figures 2014.

References

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Trendwatching 2014: November 2014 trend briefing - post-demographic consumerism. Last observed November 28, 2014 at http://trendwatching.com/trends/post-demographic-consumerism/

ipower: personas

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