Webinar: Consumer Preferences and Energy System Integration

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Featured Speaker:
Dr. Linda Steg, Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Groningen

Dr. Linda Steg is a Professor of Environmental Psychology on the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and a Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Linda is a graduate of the university and has been employed there since 1991, although the university has been there since 1614! Her main research interests focus on understanding sustainability behavior, and the factors which affect its effectiveness and acceptability. She is involved in a number of interdisciplinary research projects with the goal of understanding how to realize a sustainable energy transition. In addition to serving on a number of association and scientific boards, she also coordinates the European PERSON platform, which informs socio-economic research activity on the human dimensions of sustainable energy transitions for the purpose of promoting a secure, clean and efficient energy system. She participates in various interdisciplinary and international research programs, and collaborates with practitioners working in industry, governments and NGOs.

Moderator: Charlie Smith, ESIG Executive Director

Registration Cost: FREE

Webinar Abstract: This webinar will discuss the critical role that consumers play in the success of integrated energy systems. We will examine how to create synergy among the decentralized infrastructures for electric, gas, and heat systems, and how to promote efficient use of such energy systems by end users. The acceptability and effects of financial and social incentives that aim to encourage end-users to match energy demand to the local fluctuating supply of various renewable energy sources, so as to increase the efficient use of the local energy grid, will be presented. We will examine which factors affect the willingness of users to accept and use the proposed integrated system functionalities, the conditions under which different incentives are effective, as well as why other incentives are not. We will discuss why economic theories are often not accurate in explaining everyday behavior, and why individuals often do not make ‘rational’ decisions.