Energy management systems can play an important role in residential energy usage because of recent rapid progress in home appliance technology coupled with rising populations.
And many wearable and smart appliance technologies are being developed to help older people live in their own homes, rather than go to nursing homes.
There is also a raft of companies developing energy efficiency in appliances and technologies relevant to all aspects of human activity - in the home, factory and farm, providing clean water and dealing with human and commercial waste.
This may be explained by the differences in appliance design.
In the long run, however, the appliance stock, technologies, and infrastructure of household are variable.
In the short run, customers are subject to the constraints placed upon them by the existing appliance stock, technologies, and infrastructure of their households.
Rapid advances in building technologies and appliances have made it easier to build more energy-efficient homes, but builders are only just beginning to promote the savings for consumers, said Liz Verna, the president-elect of the Home Builders Association of Connecticut, and developer of the Willows, a 65-house development in Wallingford.
In other words, what powers the vehicles you drive in, the appliances in your home, the technology that you use, etc.? What other types of energy sources exist?
A good example is work by Shove et al (2007) on the ways in which domestic technologies (for example, kitchen appliances, digital photography) are incorporated into social practices.
This includes everything from home appliances, wearable technology and cars.
