I recently attended a meeting hosted by the Minnesota Office of Energy Security on July 21st, 2009 that focused on ways that utilities can design energy conservation and efficiency programs to most positively change the behavior of residents. The main highlights of the meeting were discussions about a successful program Owatonna Public Utilities is running, and a presentation by Franklin Energy covering key points of a report they just completed for the State.
The Program: Conserve and $ave Home Energy Reports. Owatonna Public Utilities, in partnership with Austin Utilities, is the fourth utility in the country to use Positive Energy’s Conserve and $ave Home Energy Report program to allow their customers to compare their usage to neighbors whose homes are of comparable size, and make energy efficiency choices accordingly. Xcel Energy will soon be testing variations of the reports on gas and electric customers in St. Paul, the East Metro, St. Cloud and Winona. For more information, read a May CERTs blog post, Owatonna & Austin Utilities Use Psychology to Drive Residential Energy Savings.
The Presentation: Research to Inform Design of Residential Energy Use Behavior Change Pilot. This presentation by Ed Carroll and Mark Brown of Franklin Energy was given during the meeting to highlight key findings of the report. See the presentation in the player below.
The Report: Residential Energy Use Behavior Change Pilot. This project was funded through an applied conservation research and development grant from the Minnesota Office of Energy Security (OES). The objective of this research study is to gather, analyze, and present the information necessary for OES and state utilities to move forward with a solid plan for piloting residential energy use behavior change programs as part of their Conservation Improvement Program (CIP) efforts. The end goal of this effort is to help Minnesota utilities better understand how to accelerate energy savings from changes in residential energy-use behavior. This goal includes recognizing the implementation challenges of these programs as well as their cost effectiveness on a dollar per kWh saved basis. By evaluating published studies on energy-use behavior change interventions and in conversations with industry participants, the research team was able to identify evidence as to the variety and effectiveness of behavior change programs and pilots.
