‘Nano-paint is an excellent insulator’

Fairy tale stories of energy users prove hard to dispel

The European resolution to be 20 per cent more energy efficient in ten years time than in 1990, may seem easy to achieve. If nobody leaves a light on unnecessarily, everyone buys a more energy-efficient boiler and always switches off all the stand-by buttons, the energy targets would be considerably closer. “Reality is less manageable than theory”, Julia Backhaus of ECN Policy Studies discovered. She is researching behavioural change among European energy users.

In practice it is very difficult to persuade people to economise on energy. Deeply rooted behavioural patterns are practically unshakable, and it will take considerable consumer participation and commitment to achieve the energy-saving targets. That is why in the European seventh framework programme (FP7) the research project Changing Behaviour has been financed. As the name suggests, the objective is to positively influence the behaviour of European energy users, with the aid of a newly designed practical manual (‘toolkit’), for example. This manual is being developed especially for managers of energy-saving projects, who have a hard nut to crack.

Demand Side Management Programmes
Julia Backhaus is one of the researchers contributing to the project on behalf of ECN. Before joining ECN, Ms Backhaus followed a three-year interdisciplinary Bachelor and a two-year research Master programme (Science & Technology Studies) at Maastricht University. During this course she became involved in disciplines such as Philosophy of Science and Sociology of Technology. “I found the combination of disciplines extremely interesting”, she explained.
In Maastricht the young researcher heard about ECN Policy Studies for the first time from her professor. Starting to work there in January 2009, Julia Backhaus has dedicated much of her time to Changing Behaviour. “I started with a case study of existing ‘demand side management programmes’ (DSM; programmes aimed at consumers saving energy) and am now involved, as research partner, in one of the six pilot projects in which we test some of our results.”

For the Latvian pilot project the energy experts took thermographic photos of dwellings in Riga before and after renovation. The escaping heat of the radiators under the windows is clearly visible in the old situation.

Toolkit
Ms Backhaus explains that the toolkit, one of the main achievements of the Changing Behaviour project, will become available as a website on which various parties involved in energy saving programmes can check, with just a few clicks of the mouse, how they can best design, implement and evaluate an energy saving project. This web application will be officially launched at the end of 2010.
To ensure that the advice given in the toolkit is effective, the project partners have – amongst others – collected information about one hundred DSM projects and analysed 27 of them in depth. Julia Backhaus: “These examples were studied very closely to determine why they were successful, or not as the case may be. Additionally, four workshops were organised during which people with experience in implementing DSM programmes assessed factors for success and failure once again.

Combination of research and reality
ECN has been involved in Changing Behaviour from the outset of the project (January 2008). There are twelve more participating parties. Together they form a nice mix of research institutions, such as ECN and the National Consumer Research Centre (Finland, also coordinator of the programme) and organisations that implement energy saving programmes, such as Manchester Knowledge Capital (UK) and the German consumer organisation VZ NRW.
Changing Behaviour is a project in which research and reality meet, Ms Backhaus explains. “That took us researchers a little getting used to. We are the kind of people who like take our time to read and think a lot, while our colleagues from the organisations in the field like to get started and work practically as quickly as possible. Their feedback to our sometimes overly academic work can be quite daunting. On the other hand, this ensures that we learn to present our research results in a way that they meet the challenges of practical work and may actually have an impact!”, she continued, adding that she does consider the project a valuable learning experience.
The insights acquired in the example projects are currently being put to the test in six DSM programmes. Ms Backhaus is involved in one of the pilot projects in Latvia. It is a project in which renovations including installation of more energy-efficient technology are planned for five buildings with approx. thirty apartments each. The biggest hurdle is gaining the trust and support of apartment owners: it is a legal requirement in Latvia that the majority of building residents need to vote in favour of such modernisation measures before even the first window can be changed to double-glazing. Problematic is that Soviet legacy makes residents often see responsibility to make decisions and act with the state rather than with themselves.
Reality can therefore be quite obstinate in this Latvian project, Ms Backhaus observes. During information evenings, where renovation plans are discussed with residents, people are generally very sceptical. “There is a lot of misunderstanding about investment cost, payback times, and different renovation options. And it is often extremely difficult to dispel persistent but false hopes and beliefs”, she sighs. “In Latvia it was rumoured, for instance, that there was a nano-paint that could insulate very successfully. That’s nonsense of course, but dispelling that fairytale is by no means easy, I can tell you...”

Moving house helps changing energy behaviour
How the theoretical and practical knowledge gathered during the Changing Behaviour project will help result in more efficient European energy consumers, will be seen after next year. The final results will then be presented and the toolkit will be ready to use. “There are already a few successful ‘tricks’ that will most certainly be included in the toolkit”, Ms Backhaus reveals. “Consumers adapt their behaviour more easily if their private life is in a transitional phase, soon after moving house, for example. People are also often more open to change if they are addressed collectively. And finally, a competition can also prove highly effective in many cases, if it is set up well. Such as a competition between two streets to see who uses the least energy by means of easy-to-do and hardly expensive measures.”

Text: Jorinde Schrijver

Contact
Julia Backhaus
ECN Beleidsstudies
Phone: 022 456 4413
E-mail: Julia Backhaus  (backhaus@remove-this-part-ecn.nl)

Info
General:  http://www.energychange.info/
Click here to view or download the report Past 10 years of best and bad practices in DSM.

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