“The UK has the potential to save 2.1 TWh of electricity, 647,839 tonnes of CO2 and €297,327,508 of consumer savings through greater collaboration between energy providers and consumers”
This summer the European commission agreed to a new “ambitious and at the same time realistic” energy efficiency target for the region. By 2030, Europe must improve its energy efficiency by 30%.
With the right combination of strategies, this target can be met and even beaten.
The fact is that Europe has an enormous capacity for energy efficiency and it can reduce energy consumption in ways that won’t break the bank. One of the keys to unlocking this potential lies in changing the behaviour of consumers on a grand scale.
Supplier responsibility
Energy suppliers, through a modernised approach to engaging consumers, have the power to provide them with key insights that can help them reduce their energy use.
For many consumers in the UK, their knowledge of their energy use equates to not much more than the amount they are charged for using that energy. As a result, they simply don’t have the insight to understand how their energy usage habits are impacting their bills.
However, when they are provided with the right level of information, coupled with personalised tips on how to reduce their energy, and delivered through the most effective channels to reach them, they are in a far better position to modify their consumption behaviour.
When consumers have access to easily digestible information that can help them change their habits, they do.
Through deploying behavioural energy efficiency and other customer engagement solutions in partnership with more than 90 utility companies in 9 countries, Opower has helped drive over 5 billion kilowatt-hours of consumer energy savings – that’s more energy than the Hoover Dam produces each year.
Behavioural approaches have also been proven to be successful in reducing electricity use at times of peak demand – when energy saving is most critical in the context of grid stability – as well as enabling opportunities for time-of-usage tariff adoption and more sophisticated load management approaches as more distributed generation comes on stream.
Indeed, there is a growing recognition that changing consumer behaviour may be a more cost-effective way of cutting carbon emissions than some of the more expensive technologies that are currently being subsidised.
European consumers are ready for this approach. The UK alone has the potential to save 2.1 TWh of electricity, 647,839 tonnes of CO2 and €297,327,508 of consumer savings, all through greater collaboration between energy providers and consumers.
Drawing on Opower’s data and experience enabling programs around the world, we have calculated Europe’s total energy savings potential from household behavioural energy efficiency programmes.
Right now, European utilities could reach 149 million households cost-effectively — 65% of the population in the countries we surveyed. Doing so would deliver 12 TWh in annual energy savings and 1590 MW in capacity savings.
Affordable, fast.. and ready today
Unlike energy efficiency programmes that seek to hasten market transformation over a period of years or decades, behavioural energy efficiency is available and cost-effective for over 149 million European households, right now.
Regulators should encourage utilities to adopt this approach, and utilities should turn to behavioural change to meet their targets and improve their customer relationships.
Europe can claim 12 TWh in cost-effective, achievable energy savings by heeding this call to action, concretely helping the continent to achieve and even exceed the targets set out by the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive.