1. User innovation in sustainable
home energy technologies
Sampsa Hyysalo* ^
Jouni Juntunen*
Stephanie Freeman*
*Aalto University, School of Business, Dept. of Management and International Business,
Helsinki, Finland
^ Aalto Univrersity, School of Design, Art and Architecture, Dept. of Design, Helsinki, Finland

2. User innovation in renewables
• User innovation has been documented to occur in
– Biomass heating systems and solar collectors in Austria (Ornetzeder
and Rohracher, 2006)
– Wind turbine cooperatives in Denmark (Jorgensen and Karnoe, 1995;
Karnøe, 1996)
– Energy efficient buildings in Germany (Ornetzeder and Rohracher,
2006
– Straw bale housing in the US (Seyfang, 2009),
• Finland as a ―hard case‖
– No large producers—no ―supplier ecology‖
– Wide availability of district heating systems and low energy and
electricity price backed by recent pro nuclear power decisions
– Weak signs of renewable energy activism that could explain user
inventiveness

3. Research Question
What, where and how significantly users invent renewable energy technologies
in residential homes?

4. Data & Methods
• The main Finnish forums www.lampopumput.info, and www.maalampofoorumi.fi ,
www.pellettikeskustelu.fi
– E.g. Heat pump forum (www.lampopumput.info): 202 875 posts, 12 700 threads by over
3943 registered users in 5 years, by Nov 2012 viewed over 55 000 000 times
• Sampling: overview of all major categories by going through 40-100 thread headings
and following 5-20 threads in detail per category
• Coverage: Key threads such as those in ―own modifications and improvements‖
where user designs and alterations were centered, 1206 discussion threads in total
• Semi-structured Interviews:
– 30-120 minutes
– 35 users
– 5 companies
• Analysis: posts and interviews coded for inventions, background, support given and
received, learning, forum activities, development pathways,
• Evaluation: The found user inventions by three experts

5. User inventions in Finland
• 105 inventions in heat
pumps
• 87 in wood pellet burning
systems
• User system level designs
• User modifications
• User hacks, add-ons,
relocating, repurposing

7. DIY Air-Water-
Heat-Pump & Self
made control
logic

8. Air Heat Pump Diagram
1-2 Installation location
3 Installation conditions
4-12 Melting mechanism of bottom
cover
13-16 Melting mechanism of collector
outdoor coil
17-20 Add-on for the outdoor unit
21-26 Channelling of the water out of the
unit
27-30 Handling water outside of the unit
31 Refrigerant fluid
32-35 Hot water tank
36 Water circulation
37-51 Repurposing (air-to-air pump to
air-to-water)
52 Repurposing of air-to-air to
geothermal pump
53 Repurposing swimming pool HP
to Air-to-water HP
54 Repurposing of internal unit
55 Utilization of cooled air from
outdoor unit
56-60 Add-on for internal unit
61 Mechanical structure
62-65 Sensors in internal unit
66-75 Add-on for monitoring and
controlling the overall system
76-79 System level design

9. Ground Source Heat Pump Diagram
1-8 Add-on for monitoring and controlling the
overall unit performance
9-12 Add-on for monitoring ground heat
exchanger
13-17 Coil location or modified use of coil and well
18 System level design
19-20 Water piping
21-22 Well
23 Add-on for control logic
24-25 External hot water tank as add-on
26 Heat distribution system

10. Wood Pellet Diagram
1-11 Burner
12-22 Pellet Boiler System
23-24 Burner Control
25-27 Pellet Auger
28-32 Cyclon
33-37 Indoor silo
38-46 Outdoor silo
47-51 Measurement
52-60 Automation
61 Exhaust gas vacuum
62 Hot water tank
63-86 Other pellet burning systems
87 Pellet Production

11. Summary of Innovation rating: 3 specialist reviewers
Inventiveness Ease of
Implementation
Diffusion Potential Energy Saving
Potential

12. Correlations
• Inventive modifications were thus evaluated as more difficult to
implement but had higher diffusion potential than incrementally inventive
solutions.
• The inventions that resulted in higher energy savings were also more
difficult to implement and had less diffusion potential.

13. What, where and how significantly
citizens invent ?
• In all three technologies users are able to invent in practically all parts and
subsystems of the technology : capacity invent considerable
• Few inventions new to the world, commercialized / widely proliferated
• The most user inventors built solutions that had one or several facets that
would have rendered them useless for mass producers of the systems
• A reason for why these improvements have been neglected in mass
products even when they give clear benefits to users
• User inventiveness capitalizes on locally appropriable possibilities, where
downsides do not matter, can be ignored or compensated locally
• As elsewhere highly concentrated activity, less than 0.5 % involved in
actively inventing and adopting modifications

14. Implications for energy and climate policy
• Technology development
– Examine the inventions from the perspective of what needs to
be done to proliferate them to new local markets
– Invite ‗lead-users‘ into ideation workshops to chart the future
tech. development trends
– Importance of modularity and adaptability for allowing tailoring
• Market creation
– Examining what roles are taken up by voluntary users to speed
up tech uptake; what support is missing in the market
– Invite lead-users into identifying problems and solutions to
proliferation
– Support for Internet forums and active users therein