IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018 - 31

Energy consumers can make important contributions
to reducing emissions by adopting efficiency and
curtailment behaviors.
that indicate standby consumption are easily disregarded. radiant heaters, gas fires, and lights may provide visible and tangible
services but are fed from invisible sources. So it is all too easy
for occupants of most modern buildings to have only a slight
understanding of how gas and electricity are used in their home
or workplace. only consumers who rely on solid or liquid fuels,
those who are not on an electricity grid, or those on prepayment meters have finite sources of energy services; only those
in passive houses are able to do without fuel (though probably
not without electricity). the rest rely on supplies of gas, district
heat, and electricity that are purchased on credit and pour invisibly through pipes and wires. Problems with overconsumption
are partly due to people depending on technologies that do not
communicate well how much energy they are using and that do
not give the sort of feedback that can guide them toward using
less. a useful comparison can be made with the fuel gauges in
automobiles, especially those in hybrid vehicles that show consumption and battery status in near real time.
one more communicative factor worth considering in relation
to "technical and..." approaches is the communication needed
to train the people who design, regulate, and operate buildings,
vehicles, machinery, appliances, and infrastructure. if there is
a serious mismatch between expert designers and inexpert users,
we cannot expect good environmental outcomes, no matter how
environmentally sound the intentions of either or both of these
groups. any new technological development has a social dimension, and the outcomes will depend on how the technology is
conceived (such as were the users involved in the design), communicated, and understood. a combination of intuitive design,
information, expertise, and informal learning through experience
can address the social dimension effectively. the role of "middle
actors" in energy systems, people who act as bridges or guides
between producers and consumers, experts and nonexperts, technicians and lay people, owners and tenants, is attracting increasing attention. effective communication with consumers may
involve several channels: technology design itself, direct communication through messaging, and indirect communication via
middle actors and informal networks.

Structural Influences on Human Behavior
the good news, as indicated previously, is that there are possibilities for bringing about lower-impact energy outcomes,
once we stop expecting technology to do all or most of the
work of addressing complex problems. this includes addressing individual attitudes, i.e., the aforementioned cognitive
fix, and the social, political, and cultural structures surrounding individuals, i.e., the structural fix. a critique of
january/february 2018

technical and technical-economic models is offered by sociologist Loren Lutzenhiser as a springboard for proposing that
research be expanded to include (among others) institutions,
networks of actors in energy systems, and social practices. an
analysis that includes more social and organizational understandings of energy systems can help us understand how
smart grid development may have very different impacts on
carbon emissions in different countries, depending on factors
such as patterns of demand, efficiency programs, tariffs, and
arrangements for demand-side response. Behavioral, organizational, and technical dimensions of change occur together
and can be addressed together.

Price Signals
one example of a structural fix in the domain of energy conservation is price signals, which aim to make energy-efficient choices more financially attractive or, conversely, make
energy inefficient choices more expensive. the use of price
signals can take various forms, for example, via a subsidy
on energy-efficient appliances at the point of sale or by providing a rebate after purchase or a subsidy on home-retrofit
products. these are intended to encourage energy conservation through rewarding energy-efficient consumer choices.
taxation or price hikes, on the other hand (e.g., a carbon tax
or peak versus off-peak price tariffs), make energy-inefficient choices less attractive. in this sense, pricing policies
change the relative costs and benefits, which is assumed to
guide behavioral choices of energy consumers.
Pricing is generally an effective way to change behavior. But
the effectiveness is not always as strong as sometimes assumed,
and often the effect is short-lived. when energy prices rise,
energy consumers can respond to this hike by reducing electricity demand; but energy consumption levels tend to revert to previous levels when prices fall (see also van der werff et al., in this
issue). research findings also suggest that when higher tariffs
are introduced for electricity consumption during peak hours,
energy consumption can then simply shift toward off-peak
hours, while overall energy consumption levels do not necessarily change. consumer education, feedback, and enabling technology can improve the situation: it is the nature of a program,
rather than a simple pricing fix, that determines the outcomes.
energy consumers are likely to differ in the extent to
which their choices are determined by pricing. Price signals may
work better for consumers who are mostly driven by extrinsic
motivations (e.g., rewards and incentives). But consumers who
are more strongly intrinsically motivated (e.g., by environmental concerns) may be less persuaded by price signals to change
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