The federal government wants to “sensitize” citizens to save energy. It doesn’t do any harm, but experience has shown that it doesn’t help much either. Research says that we are much more motivated to save if we can see in real time how much energy we are using.
Thermal image of a woman taking a warm shower. On average, a wimp uses 45 liters of warm water per day, which is heated with around 2.6 kWh.
It could have been a harbinger of an uncomfortable winter. At the beginning of April, France had a big problem. Many nuclear power plants were not available, but it got cold again. Millions of French switched on their electric heaters. The exchange prices for electricity exploded, there was a threat of shortages.
France activated the orange phase, which signals a tense situation: citizens were encouraged to save electricity. They were asked to put off washing clothes until the end of the week, to only take a short shower or to put the lid on the pan when cooking. The transmission system operator claims that by calling it was possible to save the output of a small nuclear power plant. But without massive imports from neighboring countries – including Switzerland – things would not have gone so smoothly.
Comparison with neighbors hardly motivates
Next winter, Europe and Switzerland could face a similar fate should Russia turn off the gas supply and thus also affect European electricity production. The Federal Council is also planning an “awareness-raising campaign”, which the economy is demanding that be started immediately. Regardless of when you start, you shouldn’t expect too much from it, say behavioral economists consulted. Gerhard Fehr from the Zurich consulting firm Fehradvice & Partners explains that only half of the population is receptive to such messages anyway.
In France, the appeal saved around one percent of generation capacity, the transmission system operator estimates. After all, that could be just the percentage that saves a country from worse, points out Lorenz Götte, who researches at the National University of Singapore. Fehr and Götte also recommend that the federal government launch a campaign so that people are ready after the summer holidays.
But how do you get citizens to save electricity so that it also brings something? Maybe with information, like the French network operator does? on its website there are over a dozen beautifully illustrated tips so that everyone quickly understands what is at stake. Lower the room temperature, only turn on the dishwasher when it is completely full, switch off electrical appliances completely instead of leaving them in stand-by mode. But Götte declines: Dozens of studies have shown that tips for saving electricity alone are of little use.
Most electricity suppliers today provide important clues. With the bill, you regularly receive a summary of the electricity consumption, which is then compared with the previous year. It’s less common to also see how you compare to the neighborhood. Such social comparisons, a form of nudging, have contributed to a decline in consumption in the USA. But in Europe, where citizens use only about a third as many resources as Americans, the savings effect of such attempts was almost negligible.
Detailed information makes the difference
Together with colleagues from the University of Lausanne, Lorenz Götte went one step further in a field test. Thousands of customers from the Zurich City Electricity Works (EWZ) received a tablet on which they could read their electricity consumption in real time. Indeed consumption decreased compared to a control group – but by only about 3 percent of daily electricity consumption. Additional tips from experts could not improve the result.
Only an app that broken down power consumption according to various activities such as cooking, washing, heating, standby and cooling made a real difference: The saving was 0.75 kWh per daywhich is significant with a daily consumption of around 9 kWh of electricity.
It is therefore crucial that you are informed immediately and in detail about your consumption. A research team from ETH Zurich and the University of Lausanne has therefore set up a second field test together with the EWZ. The test subjects received a device developed by an ETH spin-off, which they installed below the shower head themselves.
It is a display on which you can see how much water you are using and how hot it is while you are showering. A virtual polar bear also gives an indication of whether the shower is “too warm”. In this case, the ice floe on which he is standing melts.
The saving effect was striking: from day 1 onwards, the subjects saved a good fifth of the energy when showering. This is important because showering is the most energy-consuming activity of the day. The typical “warm shower” consumes 45 liters of warm water, which is heated with around 2.6 kWh.
For comparison: A refrigerator consumes around 0.6 kWh per day, light requires 1 kWh. According to Götte, the average two-person household in the sample saved 1.2 kWh and around 20 liters of water thanks to smart metering in the shower. The saving was therefore almost six times as high as if he was only informed about his total power consumption via tablet.
Of course, such a device is not free, but according to Götte, the small investment at the price at the time was amortized within nine months. According to Götte, it was also crucial for the astonishingly large effect that you are not distracted by other things in the shower, but always have the display in view.
hold providers accountable
With the installation of a smart metering system or timers that can be switched on and off remotely via an app, everyone can already do something today to reduce their electricity consumption and electricity costs.
And even if calls usually hardly get caught, it could be a little different this time, because ultimately Russia’s aggression is behind the possible shortage (which, however, is partly self-inflicted due to decisions such as the German nuclear phase-out). In a campaign, one must make the citizens aware of where the biggest power guzzlers are in the household and what can be done about it, Fehr specifies. If you want, you can get tips on this today on the Website of the Federal Office for National Economic Supply Find.
For Fehr, another lever is decisive for whether savings are made or not: the price of electricity. However, this incentive will only have a delayed effect in Switzerland. In August, the electricity companies will announce how much the electricity price for private households will increase from 2023. Providers who produce the electricity themselves may only charge consumers the production costs plus a surcharge. In the non-liberalized Swiss market, it therefore takes a long time for price signals to reach households.
After all, suppliers have direct access to their customers – and are therefore actually well positioned to motivate them to save. However, they usually want to sell more electricity. But this winter will not be normal. In view of the foreseeable supply crisis, the public owners should make them responsible for helping to save, so that next spring we can hopefully say: lucky again.