Peer-reviewed open access article - Opportunities for Promoting Healthy Homes and Long-Lasting Energy-Efficient Behaviour among Families with Children in Portugal
Energy poverty vulnerability constitutes a significant concern in Portugal. Furthermore, there is evidence that a substantial number of children live in unhealthy homes. This study aims to comprehensively characterise a sample of Portuguese families with children and their homes to identify opportunities for actions for promoting long-lasting energy efficiency and environment health-promoting behavioural changes. Results suggest that, for the population under study, the main opportunities for improvement include replacing low energy-efficient technologies, with high emission rates, namely those used for heating purposes, with cleaner and more efficient alternatives; providing citizens with detailed information about their home’s energy use and indoor air quality and educating the population on the best-practices for reducing indoor air stuffiness, mitigating the risk of hazardous exposures, improving thermal comfort and saving energy.
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Peer-reviewed open access paper – Intervening me softly – Modelling nudging interventions to change EV user preferences (2022)
This paper was submitted to the eceee Summer Study 2022 in the panel Energy-efficient and low-carbon mobility for all. The charging of an increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs) leads to load peaks in the distribution grid. Controlled charging can reduce these peaks but could also impair the mobility needs of the EV owners. Financial incentives are a frequently discussed measure to stimulate grid-friendly consumption, but they are limited in their attractiveness for the consumers. A more intuitive approach is the so-called nudging interventions, which influence the decision-making of consumers through a change in their environment. The design of nudging interventions, such as social comparison and normative feedback, is investigated in the literature but – so far – not simulated. A translation of nudging interventions into a modelling environment would, however, capture effects beyond a theoretical setting. We address this research gap – for the case of EV charging – by setting up an agent-based simulation that models the decision-making of and interaction between EV users.
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Peer-reviewed open access article - Beyond clustering: rethinking the segmentation of energy consumers when nudging them towards energy-saving behaviour
Besides technological innovations in energy production and management technologies, the fight against climate change requires fundamental changes in our energy consumption behaviour. Behavioural interventions are key to this process, especially when tailored to different energy consumer segments accounting for their socio-demographic profiles, socio- psychological characteristics and energy consumption practices. The NUDGE team published in the ACM SIGENERGY Energy Informatics Review this paper which explores how interventions, or “nudges”, can be used to promote energy-saving behaviours. The proposed approach segments participants into six energy consumer groups based on energy-consuming profiles instead of using traditional data-driven clustering. Recommendations, or “nudges”, are created through analysis of each of the six energy profiles based on socio-demographic characteristics and disseminated to participants.
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Policy brief – Profiling and nudging energy consumers to heat efficiently according to their profile
NUDGE is set up to analyse people’s behaviour, design and test nudging interventions in five EU Member States in households, energy communities and schools. All interventions are rooted in fundamental principles of behavioural science. In NUDGE, a broad range of methodologies, tools and approaches are used and most of the research and experimentation is focused on the design of policies and the formulation of recommendations specific to each country. Aside from measures such as using more energy-efficient appliances or renovating homes, understanding and changing user behaviour (e.g. what motivates to turn down the heat) is an essential and impactful part of reducing energy consumption and is the primary focus of this policy brief.
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Report - Research methodology for assessing the effectiveness of interventions regarding change of energy efficient behaviour (updated version, 2022)
The report introduces the proposed methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the NUDGE interventions. It presents and discusses several methodological approaches, ranging from randomised controlled trials to A/B testing. This includes a brief (theoretical) discussion about different methodological approaches, with accompanying power calculations. Most importantly, NUDGE presents the five pilots with general guidelines, most significantly because the details of the interventions might still change. In addition to the experimental setup, we will also formulate the first research hypothesis per pilot and provide an overview of possible outcome variables per pilot.
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Report –Pilot results: interim report
This report documents the first batch of datasets generated from the energy interventions through field trials in five pilots throughout the first 22 months of NUDGE. The aspects addressed include reporting on the characteristics of the households selected per pilot, data collected from the execution of the works conducted in the different countries and the quality assurance and control related to the results that are reported. Data collected per pilot includes geographical and climate /meteorological data, survey and technical relevant data on the characteristics of the participant households, interaction of the users with the digital user interfaces (apps and webportal), and data on Energy use that has been collected in the NUDGE Central Platform).
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Article - How NUDGE is crossing the bridge between changing our energy habits and moving away from our dependence on Russian gas
As energy prices keep soaring, and the struggle to adapt and decrease dependence on Russian gas is more concerning than ever, several have collected tips to save energy and lower our dependence on gas. NUDGE, a project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, is contributing by sharing ideas from its research. NUDGE is the perfect example of how behavioural change can be a bridge between the two as it provides solutions to push and guide citizens to reduce their energy consumptions in a direct (and indirect!) impactful way. The project shows there are many ways to save energy in our own homes, especially if you are nudged to, just as the 4 pilot cases are experimenting, with a variety of savings on the energy spectrum.
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Article - How can we ensure citizens are safeguarded from rising energy prices?
The Active Citizenship Network and Cittadinanzattiva explore the energy crisis from the citizen perspective and the essential actions necessary to combat energy prices, such as the role of energy communities and purchasing groups.
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Article – European Citizens Energy Forum: Understanding energy consumers’ behaviour to design nudging interventions
Cittadinanzattiva/Active Citizenship Network and IEECP discuss how the Citizens Energy Forum is aiming to mitigate consumer energy consumption among EU citizens.
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Article - Flemish people weigh comfort against energy savings – But how many of these strategies are already part of the Flemish savings palette?
Rising energy prices have been a concern for months. Within NUDGE, imec-mict investigates the energy behaviour of the Flemish with the aim of facilitating sustainable behavioural change.
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Blog – From Sunči app and nudging interventions to energy efficiency of your household/ Uz aplikaciju Sunči i poticajne intervencije do novih energetskih navika
In this blogpost available in Croatian and English, ZEZ’s Lucija Nad goes back to her involvement in NUDGE, introduces the application Sunči and shares some feedback from users.
The poster presenting how to nudge people to consume less electricity according to their profile is in addition made available in Croatian.
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Podcast – Changing people’s habits
In the sixth episode of the DNV Talks Energy podcast, DNV explores what influences human behaviour and how to best incentivize people to make positive changes and decisions about their energy usage. DNV and NUDGE coordinator look at the different types of motivations or ‘nudges’ that people are influenced by when making decisions about their energy usage, including environmental, technological, financial and social concerns, and what this means for the energy transition on a global scale.
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Podcast - Energy efficiency: the solution to Europe’s energy crisis
While Europe’s energy crisis fuels fears of a harsh winter for millions of European residents, many discussions are revolving around diversifying the EU’s energy suppliers and reducing European countries dependency on Russian hydrocarbons. Yet, solutions can also be found within Europe with the implementation of demand side measures to reduce energy consumption. Filippos Anagnostopoulos, IEECP, shares his expertise in energy efficiency in the building sector and what measures should be taken immediately and on the long-term to reduce energy-consumption.
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Nudges: what they are and some examples in a new comprehensive poster
Nudging is a soft push, that can make people act or react — and consume less energy — because they are told their neighbours or peers do so for instance or by changing the default settings of energy devices. The different kind of nudges gathered by the NUDGE project are presented in this poster with examples.
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Nudging people towards heating efficiently according to their profile
The profiles are based on the research done by NUDGE, following a survey, made available in 15 languages and completed by people in 29 countries which broke fresh ground in the study of energy-related behaviour by operationalizing three theoretical models of human behaviour. The results were used to profile energy consumers and understand their behaviour in relation to energy efficiency and are presented in the first NUDGE report. This poster summarises findings from the above policy brief focusing on how to nudge each profile to heat more efficiently. Available in Croatian.
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[15.03.2023] How to support efficient heating (& cooling) by profiling and nudging energy consumers
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The presentation will focus on the use of nudging interventions and profiling for reducing heating-related energy consumption in households, which accounts for 25% of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions. This session will discuss the results of a survey of 3129 respondents in 29 European countries, which found six key factors that shape a person's intention to reduce heating-related energy consumption. Perceived behavioural control and subjective norms were found to be the two most important factors. We will also cover the importance of considering attitude, personal moral norms, willingness, and age when developing policies. We will present the six types of energy users identified in the NUDGE project and the likely impact of interventions on their behaviour, aiming to support a balanced policy mix for reducing energy consumption.
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PAST EVENTS - RECORDINGS AND BRIEFINGS
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Recording - IEA Special workshop on reducing energy demand with behaviour and awareness campaigns
With the intense focus on energy security, affordability and climate goals, programmes to reduce consumer energy demand through behavioural interventions are an increasingly important tool for policymakers. Such initiatives represent some of the lowest-cost and quickly realisable energy savings available to governments. On 28 September 2022 the IEA Energy Efficiency Division hosted a workshop on best practice in behaviour and awareness campaigns for energy demand reduction.
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Webinar material – Towards energy aware behaviours: how studies on young generations can inform better policy design
This event aimed at empowering policymakers to engage the communities and in particular youth, giving space to various testimonials from the ground in short videos. It builds on the research on energy-related behaviour produced in several EU funded projects, providing evidence from surveys and onsite demonstration activities as well as findings on behaviour aspects related to energy consumption and production and what they tell us to refine top-notch policy measures, targeting specifically younger generations. A panel of policymakers, youth and consumer representatives focused on how to design policies that can favour a large-scale change in how we produce and consume energy and how to include youth in energy policies at various levels (as participants in and focus subjects).
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Webinar material - Understanding energy consumers’ behaviour to design nudging interventions: first dive into the NUDGE project
This webinar built on the results of the first NUDGE activities and especially the Europe-wide online survey, made available in 15 languages and completed by persons in 29 countries which broke fresh ground in the study of energy-related behaviour by operationalizing three theoretical models of human behaviour.
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Webinar material – Feedback and tailored advice for behaviour changes & Small-scale RES for heating (including Domestic Hot Water)
This dialogue group meeting, organised by the StreamSAVE project, gathered in May 2022 and exchanged on the scope and the approach to develop the calculation methodologies for both Priority Actions (behaviour changes and Small-scale RES for heating). Then guest presentations provided insights from NUDGE and REPLACE (Heating System Calculator).
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NEWS FROM SISTER PROJECTS
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Policy brief - newTRENDs recommendations for policy-driven modeling of the energy demand side
newTRENDs seeks to recognize and model the influence of New Societal Trends on energy demand, and hence develop scenarios of their future development. Emerging New Societal Trends will certainly have a significant impact on how we live, move, produce, work, and therefore use energy. Considering the current environmental crises, it must be ensured that these trends do not have negative consequences for the environment, and on the contrary, lead to reduced energy consumption of energy and raw material. To reach this goal, this report and policy brief provide policy-driven and policy makers’ needs driven recommendations for energy demand-side models.
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Newsletter - WHY is the next step in improving energy demand modelling to forecast the domestic sector’s energy consumption.
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INTERESTING READS AND WATCH
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- Article - Turning down your thermostat really can ease a gas supply crisis – here’s how
- Launch of EPREL database to help consumers on energy efficient products
- BECC Webinar - Theories of Change for Encouraging Climate-Friendly Behaviors
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