Objective
The main objective in this proposal is to develop methods to identify the relevance and strengths of various barriers for energy behaviour changes among end consumers and households, and to discuss how activities from political authorities, energy producers and NGOs can overcome these barriers. We will address changes in consumer behaviour along two dimensions. The first is energy saving and improvement of energy efficiency within households, the second is changes toward more sustainable and renewable energy technologies. We are also concerned about the relationship between these three strategies; turn down and switch off, the purchase of energy-efficient appliances, and shift to (more) sustainable energy carriers. Based upon the state of art we have identified six barriers to energy change among end consumers, ranking from macro to micro perspectives. 1)Physical and structural barriers. 2)Political barriers, 3) Cultural-normative or social barriers, 4) Economic barriers, 5)Knowledge based barriers and 6)Individual-psychological barriers We will combine an individual and institutional approach. This means that individual and household energy behaviour – and changes in this behaviour – can only be understood by considering individual values, attitudes, norms and knowledge among individuals together with the context in which this behaviour takes place. We have developed a methodological triangulation with three main empirical approaches. •Qualitative interviews with strategic stakeholders in the involved countries •Representative quantitative surveys among consumers in the countries involved in the project. However, we will also include Greece in this survey in order to focus on energy related questions in the climate of SE Europe • Qualitative strategic focus groups among targeted consumer groups in the same countries. With strategic groups we mean people with different windows of opportunities and people with different social background, identified in the call text.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP7-ENERGY-2007-1-RTD
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
0405 OSLO
Norway