The Legacy of Twenty Years of Energy Demand Management: we know more about Individual Behaviour but next to Nothing about Demand

Wilhite, Harold; Shove, Elizabeth; Lutzenhiser, Loren; Kempton, Willett

doi:10.1007/0-306-48160-x_4

Cited by 84 publications

(108 citation statements)

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“…Energy consumption-both total and peak demands-is also the result of energy behaviors shaped by the routines [Lutzenhiser, 1993], social norms [Schultz, 2002], habits [Steg and Vlek, 2009], and values of a culture [Shove, 2003]. Sociological theoretical frameworks are founded on this distinction [Lutzenhiser, 1993;Wilhite et al, 2000], but measurement of the embeddedness of energy service demand in social and cultural contexts has been empirically elusive [Chester et al, 2014;Romero-Lankao et al, 2014].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services

2015

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Successful climate change mitigation will involve not only technological innovation, but also innovation in how we understand the societal and individual behaviors that shape the demand for energy services. Traditionally, individual energy behaviors have been described as a function of utility optimization and behavioral economics, with price restructuring as the dominant policy lever. Previous research at the macro-level has identified economic activity, power generation and technology, and economic role as significant factors that shape energy use. However, most demand models lack basic contextual information on how dominant social phenomenon, the changing demographics of cities, and the sociocultural setting within which people operate, affect energy decisions and use patterns. Here we use high-quality Suomi-NPP VIIRS nighttime environmental products to: (1) observe aggregate human behavior through variations in energy service demand patterns during the Christmas and New Year's season and the Holy Month of Ramadan and (2) demonstrate that patterns in energy behaviors closely track sociocultural boundaries at the country, city, and district level. These findings indicate that energy decision making and demand is a sociocultural process as well as an economic process, often involving a combination of individual price-based incentives and societal-level factors. While nighttime satellite imagery has been used to map regional energy infrastructure distribution, tracking daily dynamic lighting demand at three major scales of urbanization is novel. This methodology can enrich research on the relative importance of drivers of energy demand and conservation behaviors at fine scales. Our initial results demonstrate the importance of seating energy demand frameworks in a social context.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services

2015

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“…When referring to instruments that promote energy conservation, many local actors in politics and administration in our case study finally held views which-spoken with the words of Wilhite et al [50]-"focus on engineering design, provision of technological information, (and) incentive subsidies for equipment" (p. 8447). A fact Gruber et al [51] (p.132) have also described.…”

Section: Conclusion For Research On Energy Conservation In the Contementioning

confidence: 99%

The Integration of Energy Conservation into the Political Goal of Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—A German Case Study Based on a Longitudinal Reconstruction

Stablo

Ruppert-Winkel

2012

Sustainability

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Many local governments in Germany aim to reach Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency (RESS) in their municipalities. In this context, ambitious time horizons for reaching this goal make it necessary to address the question of how less absolute energy can be consumed. The topic of energy conservation in scientific literature is very controversially discussed and in fact it is not clear which measures in the long term contribute to real reductions in energy demand. Therefore, in this paper, we do not determine how energy conservation should be achieved. Instead, we reconstruct, through an inductive longitudinal study, why energy conservation was integrated into the general principles of a municipality that wished to reach "RESS" by the year 2020 and considerably reduce energy demand. At the same time, we looked at the question of how energy conservation was conceptualized by local actors and which strategies, instruments, and activities were used to reach the goal. We found that environmentally concerned citizens brought the idea of energy conservation into the political arena. However, it was not until energy prices rose, regulations developed on a national level, subsidies for energy conservation emerged, and actions addressing the issue were seen by many local actors as adding value to the unique character the municipality gained by their RESS activities, that the actual subject was considered relevant in the municipality. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2012, 4 889

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“…The first is the 'infrastructure and systems of provision' paradigm (Seyfang & Haxeltine, 2012;Southerton, Chappells, & Vliet, 2004;Wilhite et al, 2000) which, put briefly, describes the institutional dynamics and material cultures surrounding the rise of commodity-specific chains that connect production, distribution and consumption activities. By assigning a 'vertical' logic (Fine, 1993) to the circulation of commodities and services, systems of provision approaches affirm the multiple interdependencies and standardizations that allow for the delivery of specific goods and services to the final consumer.…”

Section: Energy Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There also exist more narrow terms that refer to some of its symptoms, such as 'cold homes', 'energy non-payment' or 'energy disconnection' (Bouzarovski, 2014;Petrova, 2017;Wilhite, Shove, Lutzenhiser, & Kempton, 2000). However, one of the most common scientific understandings of 'energy poverty' is one that focuses not on issues of fuel affordability, but rather explores which factors determine the quality and type of energy services received in the home.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Energy Poverty, Vulnerability and Justice

Bouzarovski

2017

Energy Poverty

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This chapter outlines past and current definitional issues at the nexus of energy poverty, energy vulnerability, energy justice and energy transitions. It traces the historical development of scientific understandings centring on these topics, while exploring their interactions and interdependencies. The chapter starts from the multiple definitional controversies surrounding fuel poverty and energy poverty, to then discuss the different ways in which notions of energy vulnerability and energy justice have enriched traditional understandings. The latter has been achieved, in part, thanks to a fuller appreciation of the services and production chains via which energy circulates across territories.

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The Legacy of Twenty Years of Energy Demand Management: we know more about Individual Behaviour but next to Nothing about Demand

Cited by 84 publications

References 20 publications

Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services

Holidays in lights: Tracking cultural patterns in demand for energy services

The Integration of Energy Conservation into the Political Goal of Renewable Energy Self-Sufficiency—A German Case Study Based on a Longitudinal Reconstruction

Understanding Energy Poverty, Vulnerability and Justice

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