This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2022
Approaching the European Energy Crisis from the Demand Side: Energy Behavior of Private Households in Europe
Approaching the European Energy Crisis from the Demand Side: Energy Behavior of Private Households in Europe
Approaching the European Energy Crisis from the Demand Side: The Energy Behavior of Private Households in EuropeAuthors: Julian Reul,*,a,b Thomas Grube,a Jochen Linßen,a and Detlef Stoltena,ba Institute of Energy and Climate Research – Techno-economic Systems Analysis (IEK-3), Forschungszentrum Jüli...
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Personal Name(s): | Reul, Julian (Corresponding author) |
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Grube, Thomas / Linssen, Jochen / Stolten, Detlef | |
Contributing Institute: |
Technoökonomische Systemanalyse; IEK-3 |
Imprint: |
2022
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Conference: | European Social Survery Online Conference, online (online), 2022-12-07 - 2022-12-07 |
Document Type: |
Abstract |
Research Program: |
Societally Feasible Transformation Pathways Effective System Transformation Pathways |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Approaching the European Energy Crisis from the Demand Side: The Energy Behavior of Private Households in EuropeAuthors: Julian Reul,*,a,b Thomas Grube,a Jochen Linßen,a and Detlef Stoltena,ba Institute of Energy and Climate Research – Techno-economic Systems Analysis (IEK-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, 52428 Jülich, Germanyb Chair for Fuel Cells, RWTH Aachen University, c/o Institute of Energy and Climate Research - Techno-economic Systems Analysis (IEK-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Wilhelm-Johnen-Str., 52428 Jülich, GermanyAbstractEurope is in the midst of an energy crisis, with spiking gas and electricity prices in the aftermath of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting supply shortage of natural gas. One possible approach to easing the current pressure on European energy prices is to decrease energy demand.In this paper, we use the choice modeling framework MO|DE.behave to develop a nonparametric mixed logit model, using data from the eighth round of the European Social Survey (ESS) [1], to analyze the energy behavior of private households for a younger age group of 15-35 years old, a middle-aged group of 35-65, and an older one above 65. MO|DE.behave was originally developed to study the mobility behavior of households [2]. However, it can be applied to any data on choice behavior in order to conduct behavioral analyses. We utilize the ESS dataset from round eight, collected between August 2016 and December 2017, as it incorporates a module on questions related to climate change and energy behavior. We select three socio-economic attributes (1. net household income; 2. household size; and 3. presence of children in the household) and four attitudinal attributes (1. trust in politicians; 2. concern for high energy prices; 3. importance of the environment; and 4. frequency of thoughts about climate change) as model attributes to simulate the dependent variable: In your daily life, how often do you do things to reduce your energy use?Subsequently, we vary the attributes of trust in politicians and concern for high energy prices in a scenario analysis in order to study their influence on the energy behavior of European households. Our analysis revealed that in the oldest age group ca. 80% of the respondents claim to “often” or “always” mind energy use, compared to ca. 65% in the two younger age groups. Furthermore, we found that an increase in trust in politicians by +50% leads to a significant increase in the willingness to reduce energy use in the two younger age groups, whereas it has a minor effect on the energy behavior of the oldest age group. Finally, an increase in the attribute concern for expensive energy prices from the average level of “somewhat worried” to “extremely worried” slightly increases the willingness to reduce energy use across all age groups.The presentation of our research during the ESS online conference on 7th December 2022 will be in five parts. First, we will introduce the topic, touching upon the current European energy crisis, as well as the energy use of private households. Second, we will present the utilized dataset from the eighth round of the ESS, focusing on the module of climate change and energy behavior. Third, we will continue with an explanation of the chosen model structure and provide an overview of the summary statistics from the estimation procedure. Fourth, we will present the results from the scenario analysis. Fifth and finally, we place the results of the scenario analysis in the context of the current European energy crisis and open the floor for discussion.Keywords: Energy behavior, European energy crisis, discrete choice methods[1] European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC), „ESS8 - integrated file, edition 2.2 [Dataset]“, Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, 2020. [Online]. Online available: https://doi.org/10.21338/ESS8E02_2[2] Julian Reul, Thomas Grube, Jochen Linßen, und Detlef Stolten, „Modeling Behavioral Change in Transport Futures.“, 2022. [Online]. Online available: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4230060 |