Embedding final users in energy saving programs

Abstract

Several programs for energy savings are running in the world and most of them are related to the civil and small business environment. The results of energy saving programs depend on technical improvements but are also heavily affected by final users behaviors. The best way to obtain durable energy saving is involving the final users in the program in order to change their habits. Energy consumptions in an assigned environment are affected by several constrains (i. e. weather condition and social habits), in order to evaluate the savings related to a specific program, the energy saving, due to the program only, have to be identified and isolated. Since a large number of factors that can affect the energy consumption, it is difficult to define reliable models that allows the computation or the prediction of energy consumption from the environment input values. In order to evaluate the savings an approach based on the different behaviors of a selected: — experimental group: users that receive all the information related to energy saving program and are involved in the activities of the program itself; — control group: users located in the same environment of the experimental group, but not involved in the in the activities of the energy saving program; is usually adopted. With reference to the EU-IEE program Empowering the procedures for the selection of the experimental and control groups are presented. Some example of additional information to increase the final users' energy awareness is also presented.