Tailor-made Energy Consulting for Private Households, The approach of the Austrian R&D project “EnBe2.0”

Abstract

Energy consulting for private households can make a significant contribution to achieving energy efficiency targets. The extent to which these targets can be validated, however, depends to a large degree on the consideration of the individual demands of the consulted people and/or households. Not only do socioeconomic, environmental and structural factors like income, climate or living space have an impact on the effectiveness of energy consulting but also the consideration of peoples habits, needs, preferences, values, attitudes etc. Due to the fact that the common practice of energy consulting is insufficient in terms of taking into account household and end-use energy consumer related factors, energy savings gained through energy consulting for private households have, as a result, been unsatisfactory. To achieve more energy savings with the help of energy consulting the R&D-project EnBe2.0 was launched and has been carried out by an interdisciplinary consortium in Austria. The aim of the project EnBe2.0 is to develop an energy saving tool (EnBe2.0-Toolbox) that meets the multifaceted requirements of end-use energy consumers and assists energy consultants with target-group orientated energy consulting practices for private households. This paper gives an overview of the EnBe2.0 project and highlights the projects bottom-up and participatory approach.