scholarly journals Effectiveness of China’s Labeling and Incentive Programs for Household Energy Conservation and Policy Implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1923
Author(s):  
Zhuangai Li ◽  
Xia Cao

With incomplete information about the potential benefits and costs of energy-using durables, households may be unwilling to invest in products that are more energy-efficient but also more expensive in purchase decisions. To deal with this problem, labeling policy has been developed to guide customers’ energy consumption decisions by providing understandable information to evaluate the energy efficiency of products. Over the last 20 years, China has implemented a series of mandatory and voluntary energy labeling and incentive policies to reduce energy use and improve the energy efficiency of durable goods in dwellings. This study has employed empirical survey data from the Chinese General Social Survey to study the implementation effectiveness of these policies and explore demographic factors behind consumer investments in energy-saving durables by using the logistic regression model. Statistical results show that energy efficiency labeling, incentive programs, education levels, and regional differences of customers appear to be strong predictors for investing in energy-efficient air conditioners and washing machines. House size is a decisive factor in driving consumers to choose energy-saving air conditioners. In light of the above results, the study suggests improved policy for motivating consumers to purchase energy-efficient appliances in dwellings.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 565
Author(s):  
Muhammad Rizwan Ali ◽  
Muhammad Shafiq ◽  
Murad Andejany

Amplified energy demand due to technologically advanced electrical and electronic appliances has accentuated the importance of energy efficiency to overcome energy shortage and environmental concerns. As adoption of energy efficient appliances depends on perception of the consumers, this study focuses on behavioral exploration of the consumers’ intentions towards the purchase of energy efficient appliances using an extended model of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The study is based on a survey comprising 289 respondents. Partial least square (PLS) method is used to analyze the data. The results show that the attitude, perceived behavioral control, policy information campaigns, and past-purchase experiences significantly impact behavioral intentions of the consumers, whereas subjective and moral norms are insignificant in shaping behavioral intentions. Based on analyses, policy implications emphasizing (i) strong awareness campaigns, (ii) energy efficiency incentives, and (iii) replacement initiatives are proposed to help policy makers and administrators in achieving required goals of energy efficiency and conservation. The proposed research model and policy initiatives are a blueprint for synergies among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in understanding and shaping consumers’ behaviors towards the purchase of energy efficient products, particularly, in developing countries.


Author(s):  
Hugo Hens

Since the 1990s, the successive EU directives and related national or regional legislations require new construction and retrofits to be as much as possible energy-efficient. Several measures that should stepwise minimize the primary energy use for heating and cooling have become mandated as requirement. However, in reality, related predicted savings are not seen in practice. Two effects are responsible for that. The first one refers to dweller habits, which are more energy-conserving than the calculation tools presume. In fact, while in non-energy-efficient ones, habits on average result in up to a 50% lower end energy use for heating than predicted. That percentage drops to zero or it even turns negative in extremely energy-efficient residences. The second effect refers to problems with low-voltage distribution grids not designed to transport the peaks in electricity whensunny in summer. Through that, a part of converters has to be uncoupled now and then, which means less renewable electricity. This is illustrated by examples that in theory should be net-zero buildings due to the measures applied and the presence of enough photovoltaic cells (PV) on each roof. We can conclude that mandating extreme energy efficiency far beyond the present total optimum value for residential buildings looks questionable as a policy. However, despite that, governments and administrations still seem to require even more extreme measurements regarding energy efficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya Chen ◽  
Wei Xu ◽  
Qian Zhou ◽  
Zhixiang Zhou

The phenomena of “large energy consumption, high carbon emission, and serious environmental pollution” are against the goals of “low energy consumption, low emissions” in China’s industrial sector. The key to solving the problem lies in improving total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) and carbon emission efficiency (TFCE). Considering the heterogeneity of different sub-industries, this paper proposes a three-stage global meta-frontier slacks-based measure (GMSBM) method for measuring TFEE and TFCE, as well as the technology gap by combining meta-frontier technology with slacks-based measure (SBM) using data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA can effectively avoid the situation where the technology gap ratio (TGR) is larger than unity. This paper uses the three-stage method to empirically analyze TFEE and TFCE of Anhui’s 38 industrial sub-industries in China from 2012 to 2016. The main findings are as follows: (1) Anhui’s industrial sector has low TFEE and TFCE, which has great potential for improvement. (2) TFEE and TFCE of light industry are lower than those of heavy industry under group-frontier, while they are higher than those of heavy industry under meta-frontier. There is a big gap in TFEE and TFCE among sub-industries of light industry. Narrowing the gap among different sub-industries of light industry is conducive to the overall improvement in TFEE and TFCE. (3) The TGR of light industry is significantly higher than that of heavy industry, indicating that there are sub-industries with the most advanced energy use and carbon emission technologies in light industry. And there is a bigger carbon-emitting technology gap in heavy industry, so it needs to encourage technology spillover from light industry to heavy industry. (4) The total performance loss of industrial sub-industries in Anhui mainly comes from management inefficiency, so it is necessary to improve management and operational ability. Based on the findings, some policy implications are proposed.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (15) ◽  
pp. 4112
Author(s):  
Ayesha Akter Lata ◽  
Moonsoo Kang

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been used for environmental monitoring and reporting for many decades. Energy consumption is a significant research topic because wireless sensor nodes are battery-operated to be highly energy-constrained. Several strategies have been introduced in routing and MAC (Medium Access Control) layer protocols to facilitate energy saving. At the routing layer, an energy-efficient routing protocol, known as opportunistic routing (OR), has been designed to improve efficiency. OR achieves energy efficiency via load-balancing, which forwards packets along multiple routes over WSNs. At the MAC layer, an energy-efficient MAC protocol known as the asynchronous duty-cycled MAC (ADCM) protocol achieves energy saving by turning on and off a sensor node’s transmitter and receiver to eliminate unnecessary energy wastage. These protocols each have their own advantages and disadvantages. OR achieves energy efficiency at the routing layer but it raises an issue at the MAC layer. ADCM achieves energy efficiency at the MAC layer, but it hinders the packet forwarding efficiency of the OR. To attain better energy efficiency, a combination of these two ideas led to the development of OR with asynchronous duty-cycled MAC (OR-ADCM). However, even with better energy efficiency, limitations still exist in combining load-balancing and duty-cycling due to conflicts in the inherent properties of OR and ADCM. In this paper, we present a survey of the evolution of OR-ADCM over WSNs to help the reader better understand and appreciate the details of this tradeoff, which we hope will lead to the development of better protocol designs.


2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1323-1346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Schreiber ◽  
Christian K. Machens ◽  
Andreas. V. M. Herz ◽  
Simon B. Laughlin

We investigate the energy efficiency of signaling mechanisms that transfer information by means of discrete stochastic events, such as the opening or closing of an ion channel. Using a simple model for the generation of graded electrical signals by sodium and potassium channels, we find optimum numbers of channels that maximize energy efficiency. The optima depend on several factors: the relative magnitudes of the signaling cost (current flow through channels), the fixed cost of maintaining the system, the reliability of the input, additional sources of noise, and the relative costs of upstream and downstream mechanisms. We also analyze how the statistics of input signals influence energy efficiency. We find that energy-efficient signal ensembles favor a bimodal distribution of channel activations and contain only a very small fraction of large inputs when energy is scarce. We conclude that when energy use is a significant constraint, trade-offs between information transfer and energy can strongly influence the number of signaling molecules and synapses used by neurons and the manner in which these mechanisms represent information.


Author(s):  
Chao Jin ◽  
Bronis R de Supinski ◽  
David Abramson ◽  
Heidi Poxon ◽  
Luiz DeRose ◽  
...  

Energy consumption is one of the top challenges for achieving the next generation of supercomputing. Codesign of hardware and software is critical for improving energy efficiency (EE) for future large-scale systems. Many architectural power-saving techniques have been developed, and most hardware components are approaching physical limits. Accordingly, parallel computing software, including both applications and systems, should exploit power-saving hardware innovations and manage efficient energy use. In addition, new power-aware parallel computing methods are essential to decrease energy usage further. This article surveys software-based methods that aim to improve EE for parallel computing. It reviews the methods that exploit the characteristics of parallel scientific applications, including load imbalance and mixed precision of floating-point (FP) calculations, to improve EE. In addition, this article summarizes widely used methods to improve power usage at different granularities, such as the whole system and per application. In particular, it describes the most important techniques to measure and to achieve energy-efficient usage of various parallel computing facilities, including processors, memories, and networks. Overall, this article reviews the state-of-the-art of energy-efficient methods for parallel computing to motivate researchers to achieve optimal parallel computing under a power budget constraint.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 207-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas W. Davis ◽  
Alan Fuchs ◽  
Paul Gertler

This paper evaluates a large-scale appliance replacement program in Mexico that from 2009 to 2012 helped 1.9 million households replace their old refrigerators and air conditioners with energy-efficient models. Using household-level billing records from  the universe of Mexican residential customers, we find that refrigerator replacement reduces electricity consumption by 8 percent, about one-quarter of what was predicted by ex ante analyses. Moreover, we find that air conditioning replacement actually increases electricity consumption. Overall, we find that the program is an expensive way to reduce externalities from energy use, reducing carbon dioxide emissions at a program cost of over $500 per ton. (JEL L68, L94, O12, O13, Q41, Q54)


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252105
Author(s):  
Thea Gregersen ◽  
Rouven Doran ◽  
Gisela Böhm ◽  
Wouter Poortinga

This paper explores whether efficacy beliefs can alter the relationship between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors, controlling for climate change beliefs and socio-demographics. For this purpose, we used data from 23 countries that participated in the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44 387). Worry about climate change, personal efficacy, personal outcome expectancy, and collective outcome expectancy were each associated with personal energy-saving behaviors concerning either energy curtailment or energy efficiency. The results further show that outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and both types of energy behaviors. Worry was more strongly related to energy curtailment behaviors among those with high levels of personal and collective outcome expectancy. A similar pattern was found for energy efficiency behaviors, which were more strongly predicted by worry about climate change when combined with high levels of collective outcome expectancy. These findings are relevant for climate change communication, especially informational campaigns aiming to lower overall household energy use.


2021 ◽  
Vol 274 ◽  
pp. 10011
Author(s):  
Evgeniya Ilina ◽  
Diana Gafurova ◽  
Andrey Puris

The article discusses the energy-efficient repair and construction of apartment buildings, as well as the dynamics of changes in the energy efficiency class of apartment buildings in the Republic of Tatarstan. The object of the study is directly the energy efficiency of apartment buildings, as well as its increase in the course of major repairs and construction of apartment buildings. The article also discusses measures to improve the energy efficiency of apartment blocks. The purpose of the study is to analyze the state of management of energy efficient construction and repair of apartment building, mainly using the example of the Republic of Tatarstan.


Author(s):  
N. Fumo ◽  
P. J. Mago ◽  
L. M. Chamra

Cooling, Heating and Power (CHP) systems are a form of distributed generation that uses internal combustion prime-power engines to generate electricity while recovering heat for other uses. CHP is a promising technology for increasing energy efficiency through the use of distributed electric and thermal energy recovery-delivery systems at or near end-user sites. Although this technology seems to be economically feasible, the evaluation and comparison of CHP systems cannot be restricted to economical considerations only. Standard economic analysis, such as life cycle economic analysis, does not take in consideration all the benefits that can be obtained from this technology. For this reason, several aspects to perform a non-conventional evaluation of CHP systems have to be considered. Among the aspects to be included in a non-conventional evaluation are: power reliability, power quality, environmental quality, energy-efficient buildings, fuel source flexibility, brand and marketing benefits, protection from electric rate hikes, and benefits from promoting energy management practices. Some benefits of these non-economical evaluations can be transferred into an economic evaluation but others give intangible potential to the technology. This paper focus on a non-conventional evaluation based on energy-efficient buildings, which is associated to energy conservation and improvement of the building energy performance rating for government energy programs like Energy Star and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Results show that the use of CHP systems could improve the Energy Star Rating in more than 50 points. The Energy Star Rating is significant on the LEED Rating as a building can score up to 10 points of the 23 available in the Energy & Atmosphere category on energy efficiency alone. As much as 8 points can be obtained in this category due to the Energy Star rating increment from the use of CHP systems. Clearly the use of CHP systems will help building owners to reach the benefits from these energy programs while improving the overall energy use and energy cost.


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