Abstract
Energy sufficiency has recently gained increasing attention as a way to limit and reduce total energy consumption of households and overall. This paper presents both the partly new methods and the results of a comprehensive analysis of a micro- and meso-level energy sufficiency policy package to make electricity use in the home more sufficient and reduce at least the growth in per-capita dwelling size. The objective is to find out how policy can support households and their members, as individuals or as caregivers, but also manufacturers and local authorities in practicing energy sufficiency. This analysis needed an adapted and partly new set of methods we developed. Energy sufficiency does not only face barriers like energy efficiency, but also potential restrictions for certain household members or characteristics, and sometimes, preconditions have to be met to make more energy-sufficient routines and practices possible. All of this was analysed in detail to derive recommendations for which policy instruments need to be combined to an effective policy package for energy sufficiency. Energy efficiency and energy sufficiency should not be seen as opposed to each other but work in the same direction—saving energy. Therefore, some energy sufficiency policy instruments may be the same as for energy efficiency, such as energy pricing policies. Some may simply adapt technology-specific energy efficiency policy instruments. Examples include progressive appliance efficiency standards, standards based on absolute consumption, or providing energy advice. However, sufficiency may also require new policy approaches. They may range from promotion of completely different services for food and clothes cleaning, to instruments for limiting average dwelling floor area per person, or to a cap-and-trade system for the total electricity sales of a supplier to its customers, instead of an energy efficiency obligation.
Highlights
In the last four decades, energy efficiency increased significantly in OECD countries (International Energy Agency (IEA) 2016)
‘Methods for analysis of what could be appropriate energy sufficiency policy packages: steps 4 to 7’ holds the methods for steps 4 to 7 that we developed and used for the development of a micro/meso-level energy sufficiency policy in electricity use domains, with each step again followed by the example
The work presented here analysed the latter, aiming to operationalise energy sufficiency actions—what does a change in the quantity and or quality of specific utility/service mean in concrete terms of routines, social practices, and preconditions in the environment of the household, the caregivers, and the individual? And what are the necessities and potential instruments for policy to support all those who are involved in implementing such actions, or even enable them?
Summary
In the last four decades, energy efficiency increased significantly in OECD countries (International Energy Agency (IEA) 2016). For developing an energy sufficiency policy, we need to analyse which potential types of energy sufficiency action in the household exist in principle These are steps 1 to 3 of the analysis, presented here along with their application for the example of clothes cleaning.
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