Understanding and Connecting Smart Meters, Smart Grids, and Smart Markets.
- Lynne Kiesling
November 7th, 2011
Via Treehugger, an interesting report on how Americans are not making great progress on home energy efficiency improvements. As frequent visitors to this blog know, we believe that this has everything to do with motivation and incentive, namely the opportunity to utilize a transactive grid to turn behavioral changes into real currency versus simply providing people with an opportunity to avoid expenditure via conservation.
That said, even we were surprised by the report’s findings that “…for people making over $100,000 a year, their monthly energy bills would have to increase $113; while for people earning under $25,000 a year, the monthly bill would have to increase $120. Parsed another way, the survey breaks the same question down along education lines: People with graduate degrees said it’d take a $98 increase to make further investment in home energy efficiency, while for people with a high school education or less it’d take a $122 uptick.” These are substantial monthly increases to motivate people to change their behavior and should call into question current rebate or other utility programs. Perhaps endowing people with an economic “share” of water, power, etc. would cause them to think much differently perhaps?
Here is the report summary:
Americans really aren’t doing a good job actually making home energy efficiency improvements, a new national survey finds.Conducted by Shelton Group, the seventh annual Energy Pulse survey examined what energy efficiency steps just over 1500 US residents have already undertaken. It found that just 42% of people have installed high-efficiency windows, 39% have installed extra insulation; 37% have upgraded their heating or cooling system; and just 24% have installed high-efficiency water heaters.
As for home energy audits done so far, the numbers aren’t that great at all: 15% have already gotten one, 33% even think they need to get one. Though slightly under half of people surveyed say they are likely to get one.
How much higher will energy prices have to go before Americans will undertake energy efficiency efforts? For people making over $100,000 a year, their monthly energy bills would have to increase $113; while for people earning under $25,000 a year, the monthly bill would have to increase $120. Parsed another way, the survey breaks the same question down along education lines: People with graduate degrees said it’d take a $98 increase to make further investment in home energy efficiency, while for people with a high school education or less it’d take a $122 uptick.
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Based on decades of experience and interest in conservation, Monty Simus believes that a truly “smart” grid must be a “transactive” grid, unshackled from its current status as a so-called “natural monopoly.”
In short, an unlocked grid must adopt and harness the power of markets to incentivize individual users, linked to each other on a large scale, who change consumptive behavior in creative ways that drive efficiency and bring equity to use of the planet's finite and increasingly scarce resources.