Residential Consumer Attitudes to Energy Efficiency in Australia

Introduction

Growth in peak demand is placing increasing pressure on Australia's generating capacity and utilities are under increased pressure to reduce demand. At the residential level, this is being focused around encouraging changes to consumers' behaviour, making them aware of the benefits of energy-efficient appliances and reducing use of the most energy-hungry appliances.

Scope

• Survey of over 2000 households in Australia to identify their current and short-term adoption of energy efficiency measures.
• Interviews with selected utilities engaged in trials or larger-scale deployment of smart meters and advanced metering infrastructure.

Highlights

Surveys show a high share of consumers in Australia are already purchasing energy efficient appliances and are taking various steps to be more energy efficient. While only one quarter of those surveyed use or are expected to use expenditure monitors in the next 12 months, time-of-use pricing is of interest to over 50% of consumers.

Utilities' trials of time-of-use pricing and critical peak pricing have shown significant reductions in peak demand as well as savings for the vast majority of customers. Utilities own surveys also showed the majority of those on trials would recommend time-of-use tariffs.

Reasons to Purchase

• Identify residential consumers' attitudes to time-of-use pricing and energy efficiency measures.
• Track the developments of trials and deployments of advanced metering infrastructure.