How to reduce energy consumption

How do you reduce domestic energy use?

If you think about it logically, there a number of ways.

You can put the price up, but that penalises lower income groups. You can build or convert houses to conserve heat, but that takes a lot of time. You can also redesign domestic equipment to consume less energy, but this also takes time. Lastly, you can encourage people to use less energy by installing energy monitors that give them direct feedback of their energy use. 

All of these methods have associated drawbacks and costs.

I recently a read a report that explains a new idea.  It uses ‘social norms’ and is incredibly simple.  All you do is let people know how their energy consumption compares with other people.  You just print their performance on the energy bill.  You let them know the average for similar houses for that period, and what the best performers achieved.  That’s it, you leave the rest to them. 

Most people recognise the benefit to the community of saving energy and will be motivated to aspire to do better.  The method is ‘aspirational’.

How effective is it?  Typically, it reduces consumption by an average of 2%.  That doesn’t sound much, but it is equivalent to the reduction you get by increasing the price by 11%.  Furthermore it doesn’t ‘wear off’, it motivates people to improve their relative performance.

It is such a great solution, and as with all great ideas, costs little.

 Great solutions to difficult problems are found by thinking in a new way.