Behaviour change could reap rewards for UK businesses

The UK could be saving up to 2.1TWh of energy every year – representing almost £500m in utility bills – through simple behavioural change adopted by businesses and consumers.

European households are losing €2.4bn, wasting 12TWh of energy annually, and emitting an extra 3.3m tonnes of CO2 – more than enough to power every home in five European countries.

Revealed in a global study by Opower, the findings report that Germany has the most to gain by adopting behavioural energy efficiency programmes due to its large population and high energy costs. UK, France, Italy and Spain are the next countries ranked by greatest potential.

The study, “Unlocking the Potential of Behavioural Energy Efficiency in Europe”, reported that Germany has the potential to save up to 2.2TWh annually. This is enough to power all the homes in Hamburg for a year and represents €521 million savings in utility bills. France could save 1.9TWh of energy – the equivalent of powering 3,000 Eiffel towers for a year.

This wastage represents a failure to recognise the proven potential of behavioural energy efficiency to drive quick, free changes in consumers’ energy use. Behavioural energy efficiency is based on a simple idea: that providing customers with better information about their energy use, coupled with personalised efficiency tips by their utility provider will motivate them to use less energy.

John Webster, VP Marketing and Strategy, Opower EMEA, said: “Behavioural energy efficiency remains largely untapped by much of Europe – clearly there is a real opportunity here for many countries to cost-effectively cut their greenhouse gas emissions and increase consumer affordability.

“Take Germany as a prime example. Here is a market that has long invested in green technologies to reduce carbon usage on the supply side. Yet our study clearly reveals the size of their energy efficiency prize and the importance of demand side management, with consumer savings instead of consumer costs. Germany has the most potential to save energy simply by focusing on the role that individual consumers and businesses can play through informed behavioural change.”

Behavioural energy efficiency measures could help countries turn around the shortfall to the European Union’s Energy Efficiency Directive, which has set the goal of a 20 per cent reduction in energy use by 2020.

To maximise Europe’s energy savings through behavioural efficiency programmes, Opower recommends that regulators and utilities alike take the following actions:

• act now to claim the achievable potential today – programmes could impact over 149m households across Europe and can be implemented straight away, unlike many other demand side energy saving programmes that struggle for adoption;

• include behavioural interventions in all energy efficiency frameworks – utilities and program administrators should include behavioural interventions as standard practice in the efficiency portfolios, so that utilities and their customers can realize the full benefits of these programmes; and

• include behavioural interventions in all Resource Potential Studies – many governments, programme administrators and third-party influencers have conducted Resource Potential Studies, but these often address structural interventions alone, rather than evaluating behavioural approaches.