Energy Efficiency Science Vs. Society
CA 499

Alexander Champigny

Grantham University

houses now all seem to be somewhat energy efficient but how do we was as a society know what is good and bad for us when it comes to this technology. The ability to save energy has been around for a long time, we as humans learn how to save energy in our bodies, but now we need to look at how we save energy through the environment and products we use. With fluctuating gas prices, trying to conserve water, and electricity prices all on the rise is the energy efficient products being developed really worth the time and effort for society to purchase. The science that goes into developing these products do they really …show more content…
Some consumers appear to be imperfectly informed, and the evidence suggests that investment inefficiencies do cause an increase in energy use in various settings (Alcott and Greenstone 2013 p.4). Furthermore, even if the energy cost savings were known, energy efficiency investments often have other unobserved costs and benefits, making it difficult to assess welfare effects. Policy evaluations must therefore consider not just how much a policy increases energy efficiency, but what types of consumers are induced to become more energy efficient (Alcott and Greenstone 2013 p.4). A basic problem is that much of the evidence on the energy cost savings from energy efficiency comes from engineering analyses or observational studies that can suffer from a set of well-known biases. Second, when one tallies up the available empirical evidence from different contexts, it is difficult to substantiate claims of a pervasive Energy Efficiency Gap (Alcott and Greenstone 2013 p.4). Third Welfare gains will be larger from a policy that preferentially affects the decisions of consumers subject to investment inefficiencies (Alcott and Greenstone 2013 …show more content…
Between the basic problems of how policy would increase energy efficiency how does it bring in consumers and what consumers does it really include. The second issue of the conclusions is how much research is out there and what basis does it really have. The problem with the research out there about this subject is how biased it is there is not allot of research out there that includes the true consumer standpoint. Nevertheless, the available evidence from empirical analyses of weatherization, demand-side management programs, automobile and appliance markets, the “landlord–tenant” agency problem, and information elicitation suggests that while investment inefficiencies do appear in various settings, the actual magnitude of the Energy Efficiency Gap is small relative to the assessments from engineering analyses.
Future research should utilize randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental techniques to estimate the impacts of energy efficiency programs on heterogeneous consumer types and to address the challenges posed by unobserved costs and