Theoretical Frameworks and Socio-Technical Systems for Fostering Smart Communities in Smart Grid Environments

能源可持续性是一个具有国家和世界重要性的主题。智能电网环境专注于创造和使用信息和通信技术，以支持新的、可能更可持续的生产、传输、分配和消费电力的方式。这个项目的重点是创建一个社会计算系统，使公民能够对自己的能源消耗做出明智的选择，与他人分享他们的决定，并可视化他们自己行动的后果。需要新的社会计算系统来促进公民对能源经济的这种参与，因为(1)大多数公民没有意识到这些新的技术发展；(2)信息呈现设计得很差；(3)忽视了个人能源使用的社会背景，导致社会互动和合作很少。所有这些挑战都存在于人类行为(个人和社会层面)和技术的交集。智慧价值：这个项目的两个首要目标是：(A)创建用于理解这些环境的社会计算基础的变革性理论框架，使我们的方法、组件、体系结构、需求和指导方针适用于大量其他社会计算系统(例如，智能城市和医疗保健)和(B)开发以人为中心的系统，以在智能电网环境中培育智能社区，将被动的能源消费者转变为知情的、主动的决策者。更广泛的影响：该项目将产生新的工具和战略，以增加智能电网技术的使用，从而减少国家总体能源使用量和对外国能源的依赖。此外，该项目将在纳入和支持边缘和代表性不足的人口使用这些技术的能力方面取得进展，从而避免数字-能源鸿沟。原则调查人员正在与科罗拉多州拉斐特桑切斯小学的El Pueblo Mágico课外活动合作，让学生及其家庭参与培养能源意识和责任，就终端用户的能源问题提供更广泛的观点。

Energy sustainability is a theme of national and worldwide importance. Smart-Grid environments are focused on creating and using information and communication technologies to support new and potentially more sustainable ways of producing, transmitting, distributing, and consuming electricity. This project focuses on creating a socio-computational system that enables citizens to make informed choices about their energy consumption, share their decisions with others and visualize the consequences of their own actions. New social-computational systems are needed to facilitate this sort of citizen engagement with the energy economy because (1) most citizens are unaware of these new technological developments; (2) information presentation is poorly designed; and (3) the social context of individual energy use is ignored resulting in few social interactions and collaborations. All of these challenges lie at the intersection of human behavior (both individual and social levels) and technology.Intellectual Merit: The two overarching goals of this project are (a) the creation of transformative theoretical frameworks for understanding social-computational foundations for these settings, making our methodologies, components, architectures, requirements, and guidelines applicable to a large number of other social-computational systems (for example, smart cities and health-care) and (b) the development of human-centered systems for fostering smart communities in Smart-Grid environments that will turn passive consumers of energy into informed, active decision makers. Broader Impacts: The project will lead to new tools and strategies to increase the use of Smart-Grid technologies, thereby reducing overall national energy usage and dependence on foreign energy sources. In addition, the project will make strides in including and supporting the ability of marginal and underrepresented populations to use these technologies, thereby avoiding a digital-energy divide. The Principle Investigators are working with the El Pueblo Mágico after-school effort at Sanchez Elementary School in Lafayette, Colorado, to engage students and their families in fostering energy awareness and responsibility, providing broader views on end-user energy concerns.