House Owners' Perspectives on Implementing Energy Efficiency in Existing Residential Areas

Anna Joelsson and Leif Gustavsson, Mid Sweden University

Keywords

Abstract

There is a significant potential for increased energy efficiency in Swedish residential areas by improving the existing building stock. Energy conservation and changes in the energy supply chain can reduce CO2 emission and primary energy use by 95% and 70%, respectively, and be cost-efficient from a national economic perspective. However, successful implementation of changes requires them to be sufficiently attractive for consumers to adopt. Here we analyze the economic conditions for house owners to change their heating system and to implement energy-conservation measures in a Swedish context. The basis for the analysis is an electrically heated house, built in the 1970s. The effects of the Swedish customer electricity tax and two recently introduced investment subsides are investigated, and the annual heating cost is compared using two different energy suppliers. However, apart from the economics several other factors affect a house owner’s decision to change heating systems. We therefore also examine other factors through two comprehensive surveys and relate them to the house owners’ economic situation and to the national economic perspective. The most important factors for house owners were found to be the annual heating cost, the functional reliability, the investment cost and the indoor air quality. The investment subsidies could be useful to break the lock-in effect of resistance heaters, which house owners seemed to experience and the electricity tax made the systems that give effects in line with national goals more competitive. The price differences between energy suppliers had considerable impact on the house owners’ economic conditions, and possibly also on their perception of various systems.