A survey of demand response adoption in retail stores DR control preferences, stakeholder engagement, and cross-national differences

Abstract

Retail stores can participate in demand response programs with the possibility of load shifting and building automation systems. Demand response activities in retail stores are influenced by various factors, such as business operations, company goals and policies, etc. Meanwhile, the demand response participation can potentially disrupt occupants’ (e.g. customers and employees) lifestyles, thermal comfort and health as well as potentially increase cost or energy consumption. Therefore, stakeholders’ acceptance and behaviors are crucial to the retail stores’ success of demand participation. Therefore, this paper conducted a questionnaire with retail stores to investigate retail stores’ preferences of demand response programs and stakeholders’ engagement. The questionnaire is designed and collected with energy/store managers (who are responsible for energy in stores) in Denmark (N = 51) and the Philippines (N = 36). The result shows that: 1) retail stores are more willing to participate in the implicit demand response by manual energy control compared to the utility control or building automation. Meanwhile, retail stores have significant concerns about business activities and indoor lighting compared to other aspects; 2) the statistically significant influential factors for retail stores to participate in the demand response are related to whether demand response participation matches company goals, influences business operation, and whether retail stores are lack of related knowledge; 3) retail stores believe that employees and customers should be informed about the demand response activities but not involved in; 4) there are significant differences regarding energy control preferences and concerns between retail stores in Denmark and the Philippines, but no significant difference regarding employees’ and customers’ engagement.