Energising behaviour change

More insights from the Energy Saving Trust

The key drivers, being reported by lots of different sources that range from Ariel washing powder, Tetley tea (less water in the kettle please) are making the right things the norm for a lot more people.

There is still a lot of room for improvement, and there's a caveat for inaccuracies caused by self-reporting of behaviour uptake. Most people don't make the link between hot water and energy use - only 8% do. There's a perception in many parts of the country that there's no issue: "there's a lot of water around in our part of the country, so why would we save water - the South East is a long way from here"

The government has decided that within 10 years or so, every home will have a smart meter, and it's important that people know what the information on the displays actually means. Potentially, older people will need more.

There are roughly 250,000 cavity walls without insulation in Wales (350,000 tonnes of carbon a year potential saving). Some people don't understand / like the technology - 4% of people - Andy Bull's experience at Severn Wye Energy is that much of the dooubt is (naturally) based on inaccurate information and 'friends of friends' who say 'it creates damp, when it doesn't. Affordability is the reason for 42% of people in Wales - partly because people over-estimate how much it will cost relative to the savings, others lack the knowledge or the motivation (I couldn't figure what this meant in detail) - maybe couldn't be bothered to find out the actual information that was needed. We may well need added incentives such as council tax rebates or use of stronger measures for say, the private rented sector.

Higher cost measures such as microgen and solid wall insulation have different challenges. 5000 properties out of 430,000 properties with solid walls. By 2020 Wale needs to have 120,000 additional properties to have been fixed. 50,000 of electric and heat microgen installations are needed by 2020. The real barriers around solid wall insulation are a general lack of interest -interest decreases when owner-occupiers find out cost, disruption, space and aesthetic impact - with none of the turbine type signals that people are doing the right thing. Solid wall insulation is just a wall at the end of the day!

There's still a big gap in knowledge in terms of many of the technologies; 47% of housholds say that they're interested in finding out whether their proprety is suitable for micro-generation. For those that don't find their way to EST, people want to know that a) the tech is suitable, b) it works - without this, it's very easy for scepticism to grow.

What's needed? Advice for builders on materials etc, better access to demonstration projects, field trials of technologies, use of the new Feed In Tariffs, and roll out of PAYS pilots.