Evaluating the impact of energy interventions: home audits vs. community events

Scott, Michelle; McCarthy, Alaric; Ford, Rebecca; Stephenson, Janet; Gorrie, Seth Joseph

doi:10.1007/s12053-015-9420-9

Cited by 29 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…It "took cues from multiple theories and explanations of behaviour, and aimed to bridge the divide between research traditions centred on the individual and those focused on wider social and technological influences" (Stephenson et al, 2015a: page 117). Since its first publication it has been used to support enquiry into a variety of topics, including timber companies use of drying technologies (Bell et al, 2014), the impact of different home energy advice approaches (Scott et al, 2016), mobility and the future of transport (Stephenson et al, 2015b;Hopkins and Stephenson, 2014;Hopkins and Stephenson, 2016), individuals' actions on greenhouse gas emissions (Young and Middlemiss, 2012), and energy behaviour in higher education in Malaysia (Ishak et al, 2012).…”

Section: An Energy Cultures Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging energy transitions: PV uptake beyond subsidies

Ford

Walton

Stephenson

et al. 2017

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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a b s t r a c tIn the past decade there has been a substantial increase in the uptake of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems globally, which is starting to impact upon traditional electricity systems. An emerging energy transition is being driven by actions taken by actors at the grassroots level, and enabled by declining technology costs and new niche business models. However, to date, most work exploring change in energy systems has tended to focus on technological innovation and economic processes, leaving social aspects and daily activities under-addressed. Similarly, most theories that consider individual behaviour have tended to neglect the wider system of change. This paper presents an approach for simultaneously exploring behavioural and systemic change and demonstrates its use in a case study of PV uptake in New Zealand. The Energy Cultures framework is used alongside the Multi-Level Perspective of socio-technical transitions to examine the broad range of factors driving, shaping, and constraining PV uptake, and the interactions between global and national landscapes, the socio-technical regime within which users are taking action, and the niche opportunities emerging. Taking an integrating approach allows these perspectives to be brought together, providing valuable insights as to how adoption might be promoted or constrained, and the implications this may have for the future management of electricity grids.

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Section: An Energy Cultures Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging energy transitions: PV uptake beyond subsidies

Ford

Walton

Stephenson

et al. 2017

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Self Cite

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“…A systematic literature review is deﬁned as “a systematic, explicit, and reproducible design for identifying, evaluating and interpreting the existing body of recorded documents” (Fink, 2013, p. 3). As a large share of relevant research on energy and organizational culture is often conducted through in‐depth case studies or surveys (Abett et al , 2010), we believe in a review’s strength to add knowledge to the research landscape and support evidence-informed management (Seuring and Gold, 2012; Tranfield et al , 2003) by condensing the vast amount of information and making it easier to digest. We applied the review in four stages: (Stage 2.1) selecting bibliographic databases and research questions, adopting (2.2) practical as well as (2.3) methodological screening and (2.4) synthesizing the results (Cooper, 1982; Fink, 2013; Seuring and Mueller, 2008).…”

Section: Methodology and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

What energy management practice can learn from research on energy culture?

Rotzek

Scope

Günther

2018

SAMPJ

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Purpose This investigation aims to reframe the sizeable literature on barriers and drivers for energy efficiency measures (EEMs) and the phenomenon of the energy efficiency gap. The authors identify a gap between academic methods and industrial needs, as well as a neglect of the cultural dimension, despite its considerable impact. On the basis of this insight, the purpose of this paper is to integrate all of the various influences on industrial energy behavior previously identified in the literature in a refined energy cultures framework. Design/methodology/approach This paper includes a systematic literature review of research in the field of energy management, energy efficiency and cultural aspects within barriers and drivers of energy behavior. The authors select and refine an existing energy cultures framework for the industrial context. To meet industrial needs, the authors applied an ontology mapping of its core elements onto an international standard common for industrial energy management practice. Findings First, the authors present a refined framework for industrial energy cultures incorporating past barriers and drivers as factors. The framework enables an evaluation of attitude and behavioral aspects, underlying technologies, organizational culture and actions related to energy as a system of interdependencies. Second, the factors are ranked on the basis of the number of appearances and empirical metadata. Economic aspects such as “purchase, installment and hidden costs”, “general investment and risk behavior” and “regulatory conditions” are the highest ranked factors, but “existing knowledge about EEM”, “hierarchy approach: top down” and “environmental concerns” follow closely and represent cultural aspects, which are still underrated. Third, while illustrating a successful mapping onto a standardized process of continuous improvement, the authors also argue for heightened academia–practice efforts. Practical implications Reframing the energy efficiency gap as a problem of what aspirations play a role, what technology is chosen and how technologies are used should increase the level of implementation of EEMs in the real business world. Introducing the refined energy cultures framework serves as a starting point for future transdisciplinary collaboration between academia and practice. Social implications Targeting the energy efficiency gap is an essential part of the sustainable development goals. The refined energy cultures framework allows for a better understanding of the industrial energy behaviors that are responsible for a significant share of a company’s success. The introduction of energy cultures serves as a starting point for future scholarly research within sustainability management accounting. Originality/value The investigation combines existing research streams, their concepts and their results about cultural aspects related to energy efficiency for both academics and practitioners. This review is the first to capture all of the various factors analyzed in academic literature using the energy cultures framework as a basis. The authors add to the theoretical development of that framework with its application to the industrial context. This is identified as a gap. Its refinement helps to holistically understand barriers and drivers of industrial EEMs to support its practical implementation.

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“…For instance, some of our results examine how community energy and microgrids benefit rural areas in Chile [72] and Thailand [73]. Another compared the impact of energy audits and community events in New Zealand [74]. Injecting citizen science methods into research that takes place might help to contribute to various SDGs; however, for the purposes of this study, we focused on how existing citizen energy communities in the EU might further co-produce knowledge in the following areas: smart grids and smart meters, auto-consumption (primarily rooftop solar-thermal and solar PV), and citizen utilities and demand side management.…”

Section: Energy Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Science and Citizen Energy Communities: A Systematic Review and Potential Alliances for SDGs

2020

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Citizen science and citizen energy communities are pluralistic terms that refer to a constellation of methods, projects, and outreach activities; however, citizen science and citizen energy communities are rarely, if ever, explicitly aligned. Our searches for “citizen science” and “energy” produced limited results and “citizen science” and “energy communities” produced zero. Therefore, to outline a future direction of citizen science, its potential alliances with energy communities, and their collaborative contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals, we performed a systematic literature review and analysis of “public participation” and “energy communities” using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRIMSA) guidelines. The results show four pathways through which current public participation in energy communities might be more explicitly aligned with citizen science projects: benefits and values, energy practices, intermediaries, and energy citizenship. Each of these pathways could engage citizen scientists in qualitative and quantitative research and increase scientific literacy about energy systems. Our call for citizen science to supplement current forms of participation builds from the “ecologies of participation” framework, itself an extension of co-productionist theories of science and technology studies. We conclude with a discussion of affordances and barriers to the alliances between citizen science and energy communities and their potential contributions to SDGs 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 13: Climate Action, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

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Evaluating the impact of energy interventions: home audits vs. community events

Cited by 29 publications

References 28 publications

Emerging energy transitions: PV uptake beyond subsidies

Emerging energy transitions: PV uptake beyond subsidies

What energy management practice can learn from research on energy culture?

Citizen Science and Citizen Energy Communities: A Systematic Review and Potential Alliances for SDGs

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