The urgency of energy conservation : required behaviour and social norm change for demand-side management

Governments struggle with achieving their targets (often set in legislation) towards developing low carbon regions in Europe, i.e. smart energy regions. On top of the problem of climate change, concerns for security of supply and ‘peak oil’ and other resource shortages have added to the urgency of energy conservation. However, it is still thought that we are currently wasting up to 86% of our energy (cf. [1]) and that we will not utilise 2/3 of the energy efficiency potential in our economy by 2035 (cf. [2]). Supporting research in energy efficiency is therefore contributing to the European objectives in resource efficiency (cf. [3]). Today, energy efficiency is promoted under a variety of headings, including climate change mitigation, sustainability, eco-efficiency, conservation or energy self-sufficiency. Within the IEA DSM Task 24 Subtask 1, different programmes, pilots and policies (focussed on achieving better energy conservation, energy efficiency and peak load management) have been analysed in different countries in order to find out if and what behaviour change models or frameworks were used to design, implement and evaluate them, and with what success. Programmes, pilots and policies were also characterised in terms of targeted actors, scope, domain and durability of behaviour, using the framework of [4]. Of special interest is the question if there are models or frameworks which are better suited for certain programmes and energy sectors (this Task is concentrating on building, transport, SMEs and smart metering technology) than others. First outcomes of this analysis, revealing approaches for best practice and some main challenges, will be presented in this paper.