Leaping the Efficiency Gap

Charles, D. (14 August 2009 CE). Leaping the Efficiency Gap. Science 325: pp. 805-811. Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information

“Energy efficiency isn’t just low hanging fruit, it’s fruit lying on the ground.†(Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy)

The next big force for behavioral change may be technology that brings consumers face-to-face with the energy consumption. A simple version of such energy feedback is the dashboard of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, which displays the rate at which the car is burning gasoline. No one has carried out a controlled study of how drivers react to it, but “every person I know who has a Prius, they get a big grin when I mention feedback, and they have to tell me their personal story about how they’ve reduced their energy use.†(Carrie Armel, neuroscientist at Stanford’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (PEEC).

At the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, 12 Prius cars have been outfitted with more detailed dashboard displays. Researchers will use them to study how drivers react to different kinds of information, such as energy consumption, emissions or the cost of fuel being burned.

Institutional barriers bedevil fragmented, tradition-bound industry. Buildings account for 40% of the country’s energy use. Architects, engineers, builders and maintenance workers are “systematically rewarded for inefficiency and penalized for efficiency.†People are trained to satisfy the minimal standards of codes, and rarely exceed them.

“Green†buildings often don’t deliver what their designers promised because of mistakes in design, shoddy construction or poor maintenance. “No one measures building performance,†says Stephen Selkowitz, head of the Building Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “I’ll ask 100 architects, “How many of you design energy-efficient buildings?†Almost all of them. Then I’ll ask, “How many of you know the measured performance of your last building?†Not a soul! If you don’t know how well you did, how will you every do any better?

Fine Homebuilding (Fine Homebuilding Magazine) carries articles on Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) and Home Energy Rating System (HERS) (Home Energy Rating System Program (HERS)). The realty industry in California refuses to support or make use of EEI or HERS, instead relying on appraisals that do nothing more than compare square meters and what “comparables†sold for.

"There's a battle, and that battle is vicious. It's like abortion, gun control -- it's one of those "apple pie" things." (Lee Schipper, Center for Global Metropolitan Studies, UC Berkeley and Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University)

Toyota and Prius are significant pioneers in teaching about efficiency, conservation and cost effectiveness throughout the world! Prius is indeed an "apple pie" thing.