Residential energy consumption from a time-geographic perspective

Residential energy consumption is a consequence of household members’ activities in their homes. Analysing and understanding energy consumption in households therefore needs to start from household activities and everyday life. From household members’ time diaries, we can analyse and learn about when, where and what energy-related activities occur in the household, involving what household members are engaged and in what wider social context activities are performed. Based on the work of Torsten Hägerstrand, the chapter use a time-geographic visualization to analyse the activities and the software VISUAL-TimePAcTS/energy to track the relationship between activities, appliance use and electricity consumption in Sweden. By aggregating activity sequences from the time diaries written by many individuals we can reveal differences in activity patterns in larger groups, for example, men and women, people in and outside the labor force, single households and families, adults and children.