Literature Review and Scope Development: Modeling Residential Consumer Response to Time-Varying Rates for Electrified Homes

[sherryzuo]

Tracking progress on a more focused literature review and scoping effort to inform the design of retail electricity rates that influence how residential consumers operate electrified equipment (e.g., heat pumps, EVs, water heaters). The project aims to model consumer behavior that lies between fully passive/unaware and fully optimized (MPC-style) control, and to explore how different rate structures (starting with TOU and seasonal pricing) can shape operational behavior.

Goals:

Modeling Residential Consumer Behavior:

• More thorough review of OCHRE control signals and status variables (available levers /parameters that users can operate)
• Review methods for modeling residential electricity consumers, especially in the context of electrified end-uses.
• Focus on representations that fall between simple rule-of-thumb usage and fully automated MPC control—e.g., agent-based or bounded rationality models.
• Consider the diversity in awareness, responsiveness, and willingness to adapt usage.

Survey of Rate Design Options:

• Catalog and describe different electricity rate structures of increasing complexity.
• Start with Time-of-Use (TOU) and seasonal pricing as first test cases for modeling response.
• Identify dimensions of rate complexity (e.g., granularity, predictability, signal clarity).

Linking Consumer Behavior and Rate Design:

• Construct a matrix with rate types (e.g., seasonal discount, TOU) on one axis and end-uses (e.g., HVAC/heat pump, HP water heater, EV) on the other.
• Fill in with relevant detail on consumer decision making process (specifically in response to rate changes)

Deliverables:

• Revised Writeup: Extension and refinement of current document to be more actionable and clearly structured around the goals above. Inclusion of matrix.
• Slide Deck: PPTX with key schematics, integration ideas, and how this effort would build on or connect to tools like OCHRE, ResStock, Foresee, etc.
• Project Scope Overview: Initial framing of tasks, assumptions, open questions, and paths toward a prototyping/experimental phase.

Availability:
Will be fully in office this week — available for meetings between 10am to EOD (calendar is updated at sherry@switch.box)

[jpvelez]

This looks great! Just wanted to jot down some of what we discussed today:

• For heat pumps, the manual actions residents can take is pre-heating and pre-cooling. Thinking through it, this would require people to always remember to turn the heat pump up (for pre-heat) vs. down (for pre-cool) (easier to do with central HPs than minisplits because there's 1 thermostat rather than a bunch of remote controls) for a some amount of time (how much?) before the on-peak period and then lower / raise it above the usual setpoint during the on-peak period and then remember to reset the set-point after the on-peak period. That's three things to remember every time (unless I'm not thinking through this correctly), and a lot of hassle. We should look into whether it's possible to set schedules on central AC vs. minisplits.
• For heat pump water heaters, you can set schedules. JPV will need to try to do this next time he's in upstate house and document how much of a pain it is to learn how to do it / do it.
• For EVs, you can also set schedules—on the charger, if you have a smart charger, or on the EV itself if you don't. JPV will also document this next time that he's upstate.

Come to think of it, I just got a smart meter install upstate, and my utility (Central Hudson) actually offers a time-of-use rate! So I can just Try To Do All This and see what it actually involves.

[sherryzuo]

Slides draft : https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wpAroAHLUdfBIo-NoY-0DtOM2bf7vI6N5ZvWQtFUrx8/edit?usp=sharing

Running page for notes: https://www.notion.so/kexinzuo/Behavioral-Scenarios-for-Electrified-Equipment-20d2e5f7148680b0a891d1f1b2f47427?source=copy_link

General updates: Wrapped up review of what drives responses to rates from behavioural standpoint, more focused on looking at specific methodological representations of consumer response/ interactions now to select candidate to implement. Slides begin w general introduction of the bigger project, with more focused insights on later pages

[sherryzuo]

TODOs:

• Do a bit more reading on bounded rationality models for retail demand response
• Meeting tmrw w/ max & jpv to create an initial plan for implementing consumer usage model with ochre integration
• Potentially improve schematic from slides today to better represent all the flows (zoomed out ver)