What is the simplest way to cause mass behaviour change amongst electricity consumers?

If you ask people in the industry, or in DECC, they say that people will only change their behaviour if they are financially motivated to do so via their electricity tariff. I'm not so sure.

Alex Laskey of Opower says that peer pressure is more important.

But first, people need some basic information on when to use electricity.

How about a traffic light system that tells people when it is most economic for the system as a whole - it would potentially save £50 billion in UK alone, if the alternative is a couple more large nuclear power stations.
At minimal cost, each home could have a light that changes colour when the supply situation changes. At its simplest, the light would be red between 3 and 8pm in winter, amber between 8am and 3pm in winter, and green pretty much all of the rest of the time.
Thus all members of each household would clearly know when it is environmentally and economically better to use or not use electricity.
Let me know what you think and tell your friends.

UK Carbon Emissions have fallen to where they were in 1900

UK CO2 emissions (millions of tonnes) between 1850 and 2015. Source: DECC and the World 

Resources Institute CAIT data explorer. Chart by Carbon Brief. The CAIT data has been adjusted 

because it excludes land use emissions.

What do we make of this? On the face of it, we have been supremely

successful at reducing our carbon emissions since they peaked in 1970,

and are now back down to where they were in 1900.

What has caused this? Here are a few reasons, not necessarily in order of importance:

• Switching away from coal fired power stations
• De-industrialisation
• Continuous progress in energy efficiency
• The introduction of renewables
• Demand management!

Where will further progress come from? When will we get back to pre-1850 levels of emissions, which we need to do to combat climate change?

Low Hanging Fruit

For a start we can create the opportunity for a higher percentage of renewables in our energy mix by time-shifting domestic and small business consumption out of peak times -this is probably now the easiest piece of low hanging fruit to pick in the fight to reduce carbon.

Will Hinkley C go ahead?

Will Hinkley C go ahead? And if not, where does it leave UK generation policy?
Today the Chief Financial Officer of EDF resigned, highlighting the extraordinary distortion of EDF's business that the Hinkley project would cause.
 It would involve EDFselling off other assets,and restructuring share ownership, to pursue a commercially questionable project dependent on UK Government and Chinese support.
But without Hinkley C we will need either
- an expansion of gas fired CCGT stations, with the carbon and supply risks that entails
- or a  behavioural change by the consumer to limit peak demand
I prefer the latter!
Read all about it on   It's Time to Chop the Peak

Bring your own thermostat!

As usual, American electricity utilities are well ahead of UK in thinking about and testing peak reduction ideas. It's easier for them because there are a large number of independent grids with scope for smaller scale innovation.
Nonetheless, they still have difficulty in seeing how a project in one area can be repeated elsewhere, see
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/bring-your-own-thermostat-demand-management-programs-could-be-a-3b-marke/412003/

I remain convinced that this is a behavioural not a primarily technical issue, and the sooner we have an awareness campaign that goes beyond blogs like this the better! Tell your friends!

The message about awareness, altruism and peer pressure is going mainstream...thanks to Lord Deben and Sustainable Homes

Sustainable Homes, the accreditation body for housing organisations, has produced an excellent new report on what actually motivates home dwellers to change their energy behaviour,
Awareness, altruism and peer pressure all feature. They even mention peak demand issues on their site, although this is not yet centre stage.

Regen SW starting to put more emphasis on demand response

Now that the distribution capacity issues have become terminal for new PV in Devon and Cornwall, Regen SW is shifting the emphasis towards demand response and curtailed feed in periods for future PV installations, see
 http://www.regensw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Regen-SW.pdf

The well-named Tamar Bourne is leading this project under the able leadership of Merlin Hyman, their wizard CEO.
Let's hope it catches on!

Does renewable electricity reduce our need for conventional power stations?

Renewable electricity is often referred to as the answer to our need to reduce carbon and save the planet from climate change.
But does it?
In UK, we have three main sources of renewables -

•  Hydro, which is reliable and can be switched on at times of high demand, and is about 2% of national capacity
• PV, which generates when the sun shines, mainly in summer -and certainly not at 5:30pm in winter when peak demand occurs-

and

• Wind, which is intermittent and can not be relied upon to generate at peak consumption times.

So the picture for renewables in relation to peak demand is bleak - or is it?

As private PV owners are discovering, it is well worth our while shifting the time at which we use electricity away from peak times and into times of low demand - and also into times of high renewable generation.

It's much easier to do than most people think - we can delay the on times of dishwashers, washing machines and tumble driers into the middle of the night - or use them in summer when the sun is shining. We can put a time switch on our immersion heater and keep it off between 3 and 8pm - I keep mine off for a lot longer with no loss of convenience. 

All that is missing is public awareness of the value of doing so - if that were present then peer pressure would do the rest - look at recycling and where that was 30 years ago.

So do it and tell your friends!