Visualization of electricity consumption and solar panel production for house owners

Sammanfattning: In only two hours, the earth receives sunlight containing the amount of energy equivalent to one year’s electricity consumption of the entire population. Yet only 0.09 percent of the electricity production in Sweden 2016 came from solar energy. To increase that amount, the energy and communications company Umeå Energi offers solar panels to their customers. While doing that, they have identified a desire for their customers to monitor their electricity consumption and production at the same place – something that the service lacks today. This thesis investigates the actual needs behind why the solar customers want to know the electricity consumption and production information, in what contexts it will be accessed, and how that can be visualized to meet their needs. Starting with a literature study to understand the area, the work continues by meeting and interviewing customers to collect insights. These insights are then used as a foundation when creating and testing prototypes repeatedly together with the customers. It was found that being self-sufficient is one of the most important reasons for their solar panel customers for producing their own electricity. The prototypes that were created aimed to address that self-sufficiency need, together with visual representations of their electricity production and consumption – both historically as well as with live data.