Understanding Energy Behaviour – A Necessity for Supporting Domestic Energy Conservation through Design (original) (raw)

Promoting household energy conservation

Energy Policy, 2008

It is commonly assumed that households must change their behaviour to reduce the problems caused by increasing levels of fossil energy use. Strategies for behaviour change will be more effective if they target the most important causes of the behaviour in question. Therefore, this paper first discusses the factors influencing household energy use. Three barriers to fossil fuel energy conservation are discussed: insufficient knowledge of effective ways to reduce household energy use, the low priority and high costs of energy savings, and the lack of feasible alternatives. Next, the paper elaborates on the effectiveness and acceptability of strategies aimed to promote household energy savings. Informational strategies aimed at changing individuals' knowledge, perceptions, cognitions, motivations and norms, as well as structural strategies aimed at changing the context in which decisions are made, are discussed. This paper focuses on the psychological literature on household energy conservation, which mostly examined the effects of informational strategies. Finally, this paper lists important topics for future research.

Users and Energy Savings - Their Perspectives and Needs

It is becoming increasingly important to create a sustainable environment for the future. This is a problem that is recognised but it still not evident what kind of solutions that would be beneficial and useful. However, one important step is to reduce the energy consumption. In Europe, 25% of the total amount of energy being consumed is consumed by private households. Hence, if private households decrease their energy consumption this would contribute to the environment in positive ways. The aim of this paper is to describe what kind of needs users have related to energy consumption and solutions for that. Our study have been carried out in a project called Smarties in which the objective is to develop solutions that stimulates users to decrease their energy consumption. This paper reports on the users needs related to their current energy consumption situation, the actions they want or can take, and the possible future solutions they want to se.

Exploring the perceptions of drivers of energy behaviour

Energy Policy, 2019

Many models have been applied to predict energy use and savings, yet few studies have investigated people's own perceptions of what drives their energy use. Understanding these perceptions can help design energy policy that is likely to be trusted and perceived as credible. This study assessed the perception of the drivers of energy use among young adults, who had recently become independent energy consumers, but were not yet paying for their energy bills. Focus groups were conducted in which the drivers of energy use were discussed, and discussions were analysed using a framework of a successful existing behavioural model-the Comprehensive Action Determination Model-that includes both conscious and unconscious drivers of energy consumption. The findings show (1) participants did not tend to believe they saved energy to conserve the environment, (2) adherence to egoistic values, apparent in the lack of motivation to save energy in the absence of financial incentives, and (3) strong awareness of energy habits. Policy makers targeting young adults' energy use are advised how to align energy policy with these perceptions.

Energy Knowledge in Influencing Household’s Energy Conservation Behaviour

Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Environment Management, 2021

Malaysia needs to ensure stable energy consumption to improve environmental quality and energy security. The increasing trend of the country’s population growth and economic development are parallel with the country’s overall energy demand. The building sector, commercial and residential sector has contributed to more than 12% of the country's final energy consumption in the year 2018. The energy demand from the household sector is on an increasing trend. The residential sector is responsible for the increasing trend of energy consumption with the improvement of lifestyle and living standards. Variation in residents’ behaviour can cause significant differences in energy consumption due to dwellings, household size, income, and building energy consumption. Past studies have shown the identification of the relevant psychological factors that formulating energy conservation behaviour contributed to household energy consumption reduction. By focusing on the psychological dimension, ...

Motivating Sustainable Energy Consumption in the Home

2008

ABSTRACT Technologies are just now being developed that encourage sustainable energy usage in the home. One approach is to give home residents feedback of their energy consumption, typically presented using a computer visualization. The expectation is that this feedback will motivate home residents to change their energy behaviors in positive ways. Yet little attention has been paid to what exactly motivates such behavioral change.

The promise of psychological theory and methods of influencing domestic energy use

Abstract: Concern about how energy is used and how energy use can be changed has increased over recent years in response to attempts to reduce CO2 emissions, fuel poverty and combat rising energy prices. It has become clear that simply asking people about their attitudes to saving energy are not always reflected in their actual energy use practises. Therefore it is important to examine what sort of actions can be deployed to directly affect energy use.

Modifying behaviour to save energy at home is harder than we think…

Energy and Buildings, 2018

A 2-year study was carried out in a sample of 120 apartments in two cities in Israel, Jerusalem and Nesher, in which different strategies to influence energy consumption were tested using an interventional case-control design. Socio-demographic attributes of individual households were recorded and building thermal performance was evaluated by detailed computer simulation. Attitudes of the study participants to environmental issues were assessed to identify potential motivations for energy savings. Although year-on-year energy consumption increased for exogenous reasons in all test groups, in Jerusalem the increase in the maximum intervention group (which received detailed information on energy consumption patterns over time, and individually tailored energy-saving tips) was 2.5%, compared to 9.5% in the reference group, which received only generic energy saving tips. The difference among groups in Nesher was not significant. A multivariate analysis confirmed that the attempt to influence apartment occupants' behaviour failed to generate a statistically significant reduction in domestic energy consumption. The study underlines the importance of controlling for endogenous factors, such as weather and building thermal performance, while evaluating the effectiveness of different intervention strategies, to avoid potentially wrong inferences about the effectiveness of such strategies. We conclude that effective behaviour modification may require repeated implementation of a broad range of tools over a sustained period of time.

People and Energy: A design-led approach to understanding everyday energy use behaviour

Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2013

Reducing home energy use is a major societal challenge, involving behaviour change alongside infrastructure improvements. However, many approaches lump 'energy demand' together as something homogeneous, addressable primarily through quantitative feedback, rather than basing interventions on an understanding of why people use energy as they do. Our contention is that people don't set out to 'use energy': its use is a side effect of solving everyday problems, meeting needs for comfort, light, cooking, cleaning, entertainment, and so on.

The Conceptual Models of Energy Behavior and Energy Behavioral Change

—Population growth and continued trends of overconsumption and overpollution represent significant threats to the environment, which necessitate a move towards more sustainable approaches. Moving towards sustainability requires individuals’ energy behavior change. Accordingly, this paper focuses on individuals’ energy behavior in three levels: human-institutional, physical, and data levels. We investigate the role of information of smart systems on the energy behavioral change and present two integrated conceptual frameworks to increase the effective capacity of energy systems, facilitate energy consumption problem solving, and improve personal, social, and technical capabilities regarding energy consumption.