Nudging for energy efficiency

Intervention · Energy Efficiency

Can targeted messaging encourage energy saving?

Intervention Description

In order to encourage energy efficiency in households within the United Kingdom, the British Office of Gas and Electricity Market implemented various behavioral interventions. Among these were: energy saving tips, comparisons of current energy consumption to energy consumption from earlier times, bench-marking consumption, encouraging target amounts of energy consumption, financial incentives, digital media, real-time display devices, and smart meters. Although many of the interventions did not lead to significant behavior changes, a combination of the real-time display devices and the smart meters did result in energy savings. The success of this combination may be because consumers were able to conveniently see how much energy they were using and they were able to see it often.

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