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Behaviour: Seeing heat saves energy

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 15013 (2016) Cite this article

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Household energy conservation can help to significantly lower energy consumption. Visual cues provided by thermal imaging of heat loss in buildings are now shown to increase energy conserving behaviours and implementations among homeowners more effectively than just performing carbon footprint audits.

Home heating is responsible for more than two-thirds of total household energy use in Europe3. A number of cost-effective measures to improve home energy efficiency are available, including insulation, draught proofing, and closing curtains at night, yet such measures are not widely adopted. Goodhew and colleagues propose that this is because households are not sufficiently aware of energy inefficiencies in their home2. Thermal cameras offer a potential solution to this lack of awareness by providing vivid, specific and meaningful information that increases people's awareness of heat losses and motivates them to take action to reduce them. Moreover, thermal images of one's home are tailored to one's personal situation, and provide clear suggestions on how to conserve heat, which can empower people to take energy conservation measures.

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Figure 1: Example thermal images of households.

References

  1. Consumption of Energy (Eurostat, accessed 16 May 2015); http://go.nature.com/Cmi1XR

  2. Goodhew, J., Pahl, S., Auburn, T. & Goodhew, S. Environ. Behav. 47, (2015).

  3. Energy Efficiency and Energy Consumption in the Household Sector (European Environment Agency, accessed 11 November 2015); http://go.nature.com/7xsPOK

  4. Steg, L., Perlaviciute, G. & van der Werff, E. Front. Psychol. 6, 805 (2015).

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  5. Midden, C. & Ham, J. in Environmental Psychology: An Introduction (eds Steg, L., van den Berg, A. & de Groot, J. I. M. ) 243–254 (Wiley, 2012).

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  1. Linda Steg is at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen, the Netherlands.,

    Linda Steg

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  1. Linda Steg
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Correspondence to Linda Steg.

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Steg, L. Behaviour: Seeing heat saves energy. Nat Energy 1, 15013 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2015.13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2015.13

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