The effect of providing free autopoweroff plugs to households on electricity consumption - A field experiment

Experimental evidence of the effect of providing cheap energy saving technology to households is sparse. We present results from a field experiment in which autopoweroff plugs are provided free of charge to randomly selected households. We use propensity score matching to find treatment effects on metered electricity consumption for different types of households. We find effects for single men and couples without children, while we find no effect for single women and households with children. We suggest that this could be because of differences in saving potential (e.g. some households do not have appliances where using a plug is relevant), differences in the skills relevant for installing the technology and differences in the willingness to spend time and effort on installation. We conclude that targeting interventions at more responsive households, and tailoring interventions to target groups, can increase efficiency of programmes.autopoweroff plugs, treatment effect, energy consumption, types of households

Standby and Off-Mode Energy Losses In New Appliances Measured in Shops

Selina project website at http://selina-project.eu PDF available online at http://selina-project.eu/files/SELINA_book.pdfInternational audienceThis document provides an overview of the most important results of the Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) Project SELINA - Standby and Off-Mode Energy Losses In New Appliances Measured in Shops. Standby power is a general term commonly used to describe the low power modes in which many electrical and electronic products are, when not performing their main function. For more than a decade, it has been recognized that the energy consumption in low power modes for electrical and electronic products is an important issue because it represent permanent loads (sometimes up to 24 hours per day) of a huge number of products. With the 1 W standby initiative of the International Energy Agency (IEA), several low power mode measurement campaigns have been led on a regular basis in a number of countries outside and inside Europe Union (EU). Based on these results and on the Energy-using Products Study Lot 6, the EU has prepared new regulation to limit the standby and off-mode power consumption of non-networked household electronic and electrical equipment, which is being applied since January 2010. The IEE project SELINA carried out a large scale monitoring campaign in shops in order to characterise the low power modes of new appliances being sold in the EU market. In order to ensure consistency of the collected data, a common measurement methodology was developed and the same high resolution measurement equipment was used by all partners. This document analyzes the results of more than 6000 different equipments measured in the 12 EU countries involved in the project. Standby and off-mode values by product categories were analysed and compared with data from other regions of the World. The measurements were also benchmarked against the new 2010/2013 EU standby and off mode regulation thresholds and the impact of the EU regulation is discussed. It was found that 18.5% of the equipments, whose off-mode power was measured, do not respect the EU regulation threshold of 1 W. When the measurements are compared to the 2013 threshold of 0.5 W, this percentage raises up to 41.5%. Regarding standby mode input power, 31% of the measured products did not comply with EU regulation limit for the 2010 threshold. When the standby measured values are compared to the 2013 limit, the number of products over the EU regulation target increases to 66.4%. When comparing the 2009 and 2010 measurements, only a slight decrease of the share of appliances exceeding the EU regulation limits was observed. In parallel with the measurement campaign, an awareness study of the retailers was carried out. This survey helps to understand the customers' buying motivations and the influence of retailers' advice in their choices. The results of the survey show that, despite of retailer's consciousness about the energy consumption and energy labels of the products, other types of sales arguments like the appliance price or functionalities are more frequently used to sell a product. This could be due to lack of visible information in shops related to the equipment energy consumption. Furthermore, the results show that retailers try to adapt their advice to the customers' needs (price and product functionalities). The retailers admitted that publishing more information regarding the energy consumption of products and some kind of cost saving calculator/reference would make the clients to opt for more efficient equipments. Based on the survey results and on the analysis of different existing policies targeting electrical and electronic products in Europe, examples of policies to improve the low power modes situation of the EU market are reviewed. The survey on measures enhancing the market transformation towards more energy-efficient electrical appliances showed a wide range of actions and policy tools in the SELINA partner countries. In national workshops, which mainly took place in the late summer/early autumn 2010, these measures were presented and discussed with all relevant national stakeholders. In most countries, information campaigns (esp. brochures, leaflets, websites, and national labels) are the dominating measure type. In some countries, however, financial subsidies for very energy-efficient appliances, often paid by an energy utility and not by the government, play an important role, too (e.g. in the Czech Republic or Switzerland). In general, the impact of a financial programme is easier to quantify than the single impact of an information campaign, which often serves as an accompanying measure for regulations (labels, minimum efficiency standards) or fiscal and financial measures. International cooperation with key institutions outside the EU, involved in similar efforts, such as the IEA Implementing Agreement 4E (Efficient Electrical End-use Equipment) with an Annex on Standby, the Energy Star/EPA in USA, the Australia Standby Initiative and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, were used to promote synergies in the definition of common approaches to characterize the market and to define realistic and cost-effective performance targets which can be achieved in a short time frame. Special care is required when promoting low standby consumption products (without consideration of other attributes) to ensure that there are no perverse effects such as the inadvertent promotion of products with low active mode efficiency and high energy consumption. It is desirable to follow a vertical approach to standby, where low power modes are combined with active modes to give total energy consumption. This approach is particularly preferable for products where the total energy consumption is significant. The definition of usage patterns under such a vertical approach is necessarily product specific and this could vary by region or country. The new technologies offer many opportunities for energy savings potential but there are also some threats which need to be recognized and understood. There is a strong need to ensure that energy saving paradigms and strategies become a core consideration in future product designs. It is recognized that equipments connected to networks are of growing importance. It is recommended that increased efforts to compile data and measurements, of networked products, from a variety of sources in order to obtain better information on networked product characteristics, needs to be made. An online database was created so that everyone can access the input power values, in the different equipment low power modes, of the more than 6000 equipments measured. A Standby Calculator Tool was also developed and can be accessed through the project website. It can be used to calculate the consumed energy, the annual cost and the equivalent CO2 emissions. In order to compare the results in an easy way, a diagram that shows the energy consumption of the different models is presented. Furthermore, the values for the most efficient device are also showed, in order to have an additional comparison. One of the main objectives of this project was to identify effective market transformation policies initiatives targeted at all the key stakeholders involved in the manufacture, distribution, sales, purchasing and operation of appliances with standby and off-mode losses. As a result of the future policy actions that may appear after the end of the project, considering loads in networked mode, it is expected to achieve very large cost-effective savings of electricity (80 TWh projected by 2020) and carbon emissions (30 MTons of CO2 by 2020)

The Nordic Ecodesign Effect Project : Estimating benefits of Nordic market surveillance of ecodesign and energy labelling

The project presents a calculation of the benefits and effects of the current market surveillance of ecodesign and energy labelling in the Nordic countries. The results indicate that market surveillance is cost effective, especially when countries cooperate; market surveillance of 2 million Euro saves about 30 million Euro for the customers. The project is part of Nordsyn under the Nordic Prime Ministers' overall green growth initiative - read more at www.norden.org/greengrowth

Nordcrawl 2

The NordCrawl2 project was done for the Nordic Nordsyn cooperation, sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Within this project the webcrawling Nordcrawl-tool was developed for market surveillance - to find missing labels and products not meeting ecodesign limits - and for policy – where a method to estimate market share was developed. The project shows that the Nordcrawl-tool can indeed already be a useful tool for both market surveillance and policy evaluation for ecodesign and energy labelling. Also the Nordcrawl tool still has great potential for further developments, and some ideas and recommendations are given in this report

The effect of providing free autopoweroff plugs to households on electricity consumption - a field experiment

Experimental evidence of the effect of providing cheap energy saving technology to households is sparse. We present results from a field experiment in which autopoweroff plugs are provided free of charge to randomly selected households. We use propensity score matching to find treatment effects on metered electricity consumption for different types of households. We find effects for single men and couples without children, while we find no effect for single women and households with children. We suggest that this could be because of differences in saving potential (e.g. some households do not have appliances where using a plug is relevant), differences in the skills relevant for installing the technology and differences in the willingness to spend time and effort on installation. We conclude that targeting interventions at more responsive households, and tailoring interventions to target groups, can increase efficiency of programmes