Driving Change
Driving Change is the meta-analysis of the outcomes produced through the LIEEP pilots and was authored by the Group of Energy Efficiency Researchers Australia (GEER). The program underlined the value of delivering information through a trusted voice – noting that projects were more likely to succeed where they were tailored to fit the lifestyles and values of participants, were trusted by participants, drew from an evidence base, balanced project with participant needs, and were appropriately resourced.
Driving Change outlines a program delivery framework to guide other energy management programs through recruitment, engagement, education and outcomes.
Milestone: Housing Summit
Working with a coalition of stakeholders, we convened a Housing Summit in September 2018, inviting consumer and community organisations as well as industry and government who had been working on those issues in their jurisdictions to come together.
At the Summit, the CEOs of a number of consumer and community organisations called for a comprehensive national strategy to improve the energy performance standards of all Australian homes. That group subsequently formed the Healthy and Affordable Homes Coalition which continues to work together.
Energy Ministers agreed to a trajectory to raise energy performance standards for new housing from 2022, as well as to cooperate to improve the energy performance of some 10 million existing homes.
Empowering Low-Income Households
Engagement in the LIEEP trials reduced participants’ stress and anxiety levels, and they reported positive improvements to their levels of knowledge, confidence and self-efficacy.
Empowering Low-Income Households, GEER’s analysis of the LIEEP outcomes, identified a range of ‘co-benefits’ for which they had no common measure. The GEER analysis also highlighted other, broader benefits to giving households more control over their bills.
Household Sentiment and Behaviour
While the focus of Power Shift was on vulnerable and low-income consumers, we realised early on that there were lessons for how all households could benefit from managing their energy use and controlling their costs.
Our consumer research shows households are telling us that more can be done to improve their confidence in achieving better outcomes from energy markets.
We commissioned Back2Back Consulting to undertake an analysis of the survey data with the aim of further unpacking what it tells about the capacity and willingness of households, including those in financial stress or with low incomes, to manage their energy use.
Desktop Review of Complementary Research
The challenges faced by Australian consumers in managing energy use and costs are similar in other countries. Like LIEEP, there have been substantive and innovative programs trialled. The Group of Energy Efficiency Researchers (GEER) found over 1,000 energy efficiency projects in Australia and across the world over the past decade.
The review Effectiveness of Household Energy Efficiency Interventions in Advanced Economies reinforced many of the findings from LIEEP, and most importantly consolidated the evidence that consumer-centred design must be the focus of energy management programs.
The project featured a systematic review of published household energy efficiency interventions in advanced economies to assess what works and what doesn’t work.
The findings add to the evidence base regarding the effectiveness of household energy efficiency interventions, and will help inform better policy, interventions and consumer advocacy to help Australian households achieve better energy and related co-benefit outcomes, and provide good return on investment.
Innovation in Energy Services Workshops
Power Shift’s insights into consumers underlines the need for those solutions to be described in terms that customers will value, and to which they can respond. How we frame that discussion is important.
Energy Consumers Australia’s Foresighting Forum 2018 theme was Take charge: Shifting power to consumers in the using, making and trading of energy to canvass those issues.
We also convened Innovation in Energy Services Workshops in Sydney in October and November 2018, with some 100 stakeholders from across the energy sector participating.
- The first workshop “Consumer, prosumer and prosumanager” – how service innovation will disrupt the utility business models”, on 25 October 2018 was led Dr Fereidoon Sioshansi from Menlo Energy Economics, who is based in California.
- The second workshop “Consumer Reward Pricing – optimising energy use behaviour” was led by Dr Ahmad Faruqui of The Brattle Group, who is based in California.
