To change behaviour

Posted 17 October, 2011

Electricity consumption

According to Maingate's recent study on Swedish electricity consumption habits it is clear that more detailed information on our consumption would have made us change our energy consumption habits. The Swedish newspaper DN talks about our study (PDF-document, 518 kB) and need for consumer control. Even the Swedish evening paper Aftonbladet talks about the need for consumer control.

Hourly meter reading

What is also clear is that the environment would benefit from hourly metering of electricity consumption. As consumers move some of the consumption to evenings and weekends, our society's total consumption become more evenly spread over days and there will be less need to import electricity from dirty energy sources to cope with consumption peaks.

Environmental arguments

The survey indicates that seven out of ten consumers believe that the environmental argument is important - people want clean electricity. It has become an integral part of a sustainable society and hourly metering is an important tool to achieve this. Consumers want to keep track of their consumption both from a wallet perspective and from an environmental perspective.
We have evolved from energy consumers to become energy citizens.

Control energy costs

The government has announced that electricity consumers will get hourly metering of their electricity consumption in order to clarify the connection between their electricity consumption and cost. The survey shows that the government's ideas have strong support among the public. The government bill on hourly metering should soon become a reality so that we do not have to experience another hard winter with no ability to control our energy costs.

Download the study (PDF-document, 518 kB).