Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings

Abstract

In a national online survey, 505 participants reported their perceptions of energy consumption and savings for a variety of household, transportation, and recycling activities. When asked for the most effective strategy they could implement to conserve energy, most participants mentioned curtailment (e.g., turning off lights, driving less) rather than efficiency improvements (e.g., installing more efficient light bulbs and appliances), in contrast to experts' recommendations. For a sample of 15 activities, participants underestimated energy use and savings by a factor of 2.8 on average, with small overestimates for low-energy activities and large underestimates for high-energy activities. Additional estimation and ranking tasks also yielded relatively flat functions for perceived energy use and savings. Across several tasks, participants with higher numeracy scores and stronger proenvironmental attitudes had more accurate perceptions. The serious deficiencies highlighted by these results suggest that well-designed efforts to improve the public's understanding of energy use and savings could pay large dividends.

Fig. 1.

Mean perceptions of energy used or saved as a function of actual energy used or saved for 15 devices and activities. Error bars for 95% confidence intervals are omitted because they are typically no taller than the symbols themselves. The diagonal dashed line represents perfect accuracy. Inset: Individual regression curves for 30 randomly selected participants.

Fig. 2.

Mean perceptions of energy used or saved as functions of actual energy used or saved for automobile-related activities (A), modes of transporting goods (B), and methods of manufacturing beverage containers (C). Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals for mean perceptions. Diagonal dashed lines represent accurate responses. In B and C, the dashed lines were derived by regressing the correct ranks onto actual energy use.