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。智能电网环境的重点是创建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，使公民能够对他们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为的后果。需要新的社会计算系统来促进这种公民参与能源经济，因为(1)大多数公民不知道这些新技术的发展；(2)信息呈现设计不良；(3)个体能源使用的社会背景被忽视，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）和技术的交叉点。学术价值:这个项目的两个首要目标是：(a)创建变革性的理论框架，以理解这些设置的社会计算基础，使我们的方法、组件、架构、需求和指导方针适用于大量其他社会计算系统(例如，(b)发展以人为本的系统，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、积极的决策者。更广泛的影响：该项目将带来新的工具和战略，以增加智能电网技术的使用，从而减少国家总体能源使用和对外国能源的依赖。此外，该项目将在包容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长足进展，从而避免数字能源鸿沟。主要调查人员正在与科罗拉多州拉斐特市桑切斯小学的El Pueblo Mágico课后活动合作，让学生和他们的家庭参与培养能源意识和责任，为最终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.