Approaches to long-term effective power saving advice

In the project “Power efficiency classes for households”, instruments and advisory services that support private households in saving electricity were developed and successfully tested. In the successor project “Power saving advice”, these instruments are to be further disseminated and linked with the consulting services of municipalities and consumer organizations.

Power efficiency classes: distribution and networking

In the project “Power saving advice”, the researchers are taking up a successful tool from the project “Power efficiency classes for households”. In order to enable private households to assess, and reduce their overall power consumption, a comparison table with seven consumption classes for different household types was developed in the previous project. This division into power efficiency classes was adopted in 2016 in the “Stromspiegel” for Germany, which uses comparative values to classify electricity consumption and determine potential savings. The Stromspiegel is part of the energy-saving initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. It is backed by a broad alliance of actors including energy suppliers, climate agencies, consumer organizations and other multipliers in the field of energy saving and climate protection. Together with these actors, the project team will now try to open up new fields of application for the use of power efficiency classes.

Applicable tools for practical use

Several products are planned for practical application. These include a modular toolbox for energy supply companies helping their customers to reduce their power consumption, an appropriate tool for energy consultants, and a networking tool which is intended to help local authorities, municipal utilities, energy supply companies and other multipliers to communicate their advisory services to consumers.

Background

The federal government wants to reduce electricity consumption by 25 percent by 2050. Private households are also in demand: they are responsible for a quarter of total electricity consumption. At the same time, they can save more than 50% of their power consumption simply by using particularly efficient household appliances. In the project “Power efficiency classes for households”, instruments and advisory services that support private households in saving electricity were developed and successfully tested. With the help of the successor project “Power saving advice”, this instrument is to be further disseminated and linked with innovative consulting services for municipalities and consumer organizations.

Cooperation partners

• Öko-Institut e.V.

Funding

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the project “Approaches for an long-term effective power saving advice” in the funding priority “Social-ecological Research (SÖF)”.