Energy Efficiency in Buildings Behavioral Issues (1985) / Chapter Skim
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1. Energy Conservation Policy and Behavior
1. Energy Conservation Policy and Behavior
Pages 1-8
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Until now, residential energy conservation forced by energy price increases in the United States has mainly taken the form of reduced standards of living rather than increased efficiency of energy use {see Frieden and Baker, 1983; King et al., 1982; Morlan, 1981, cited in Hirst, Marlay, et al., 1983; Stern, Black, and Elworth, 1983~. Moreover, the reduced living standards have occurred primarily among low-income households: investments in improved energy efficiency have mainly been made by the well-to-do (Dillman, Rosa, and Dillman, 1984; Energy Information Administration, 1980)
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When policy makers fail to recognize energy's human dimension, policy initiatives have often faltered. When the Residential Conservation Service program offered homeowners individualized energy information at low cost or even for free, the response was decidedly underwhelming (U.S.
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Many plausible explanations have been offered for these outcomes, but none has been proved and the reason or reasons remain unknown. Perhaps people take some of their energy savings back as increased comfort by altering thermostat settings; perhaps installers of energy-efficient equipment do not install it the way the predictive models expect; and perhaps even the carefully constructed computer models used to predict energy savings are not correct or not precise, since different engineers using the same model of the same building often vary by 100 percent in their estimates of how much energy a building uses (K.
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From page 4... ...
For example, Residential Conservation Service programs have offered better information to energy users through home energy audits, and DOE's Home Energy Rating System (HERS) and appliance labeling programs aim to save energy by providing more accurate information to purchasers about the energy efficiency of buildings and appliances.
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Community groups are being used increasingly to implement energy programs because of a belief, supported by case studies, that such groups spread information more successfully (e.g., Gaskell and Pike, 1983; also see Chapter 3~. How can the of facts of a oroaram be forecasts Formal energy demand models rarely contain terms for information, so they can only forecast its effects by making assumptions about how information affects the variables that the models represent.
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Standards Although energy-efficiency standards for buildings are not currently being pursued in the federal government, there is federal legislation regarding appliance standards, and some state and local governments set energy efficiency standards for appliances and in building codes. Under the appliance standards legislation, DOE has been analyzing the behavior of appliance manufacturers and purchasers to determine whether standards would produce energy savings in addition to what can be expected as a result of market pressures (rising prices, foreign competition, etc.~.
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From page 7... ...
Behavioral questions arise because the practical effect of any new technology depends on human choices about its purchase and use. Adoption decisions, in turn, depend on whether estimates of energy savings from the new technology are reliable, and it is hard to make estimates when the energy savings depend not only on the operation of the technology but on the behavior of the people who use it.
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From page 8... ...
More such study can be done, even within existing resource limits. m e next chapter offers a framework for answering behavioral questions about energy efficiency in buildings.
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