-Increased energy efficiency of the building sector is high on the list of priorities for energy policy since better energy efficiency would help to reduce impact on climate change and increase security of energy supply. One aim of the present study was to find a relative effect of growth of demand for energy services due to changes in income, energy consumption per unit of demand due to technological development, changes in electricity price and household income on household electricity consumption in Latvia. The method applied included system dynamics modeling and data from a household survey regarding the relationship between electricity saving activities and the electricity cost-income ratio. The results revealed that, in direct contrast to the expected, a potential reduction of the electricity consumption is rather insensitive to electricity price and electricity cost-income ratio, and that the efficiency of technologies could be the main drivers for future electricity savings. The results suggest that support to advancement of technologies and faster replacement of inefficient ones rather than influencing the energy price could be effective energy policy measures. The model, developed in the study could be used in similar assessments in other countries.
This paper analyzes the results of providing smart meters and appropriate feedback on electricity consumption in a pilot study involving around 1 000 households in latvia. The findings from our study have shown that smart meter roll-out and provision of appropriate feedback information can provide significant energy savings for household customers. in comparison with the control group the average consumption of the target group fell by 19% year by year. additionally, there was identified in the consumption group 0-399 kWh per month that feedback enabled by smart meters motivated to consume less electricity those customers who recognize options how to change their energy consumption behavior. it was also identified that customer willingness to receive additional information does not necessarily correspond with later actions to reduce consumption. This could be related to actual or desired behavior that together with feedback induced motivation results into energy saving actions.
In case of opening the electricity market, various factors interact with each other. Although research has been done on various factors affecting the liberal electricity market, little attention has been paid to studying the dynamic relations between the actors involved in the liberal electricity market and projections on electricity consumption in households. The main aim of the research is to explore both short- and long-term effects on the electricity consumption at liberal market conditions by modelling various development scenarios. The electricity market in operation in Latvia was used as the case study. For the simulation of electricity market liberalization, system dynamics has been chosen. This method can determine electricity savings in case of electricity market opening, because system dynamics allows conducting simulation of complex systems and analysing the obtained data to forecast probability of the development of several scenarios. Obtained results show that cumulative electricity savings in households could reach 560 GWh by the end of 2020 due to the opening of the electricity market, implementation of energy saving measures and other reasons. In case of scenario analysis using the change of consumption behaviour, it was obtained that the cumulative electricity saving could be almost twice as big if the majority of households were guided by the environmental concerns. Although the system dynamics model was based on the Latvian case study, its general application to other countries and electricity markets is also possible.
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