The EU project BARENERGY aims to identify the relevance and strengths of various barriers for energy behaviour changes among end consumers and households, and to discuss how activities from political authorities, energy producers and NGOs can overcome these barriers. It will address changes in consumer behaviour along two dimensions: The first is energy saving and improvement of energy efficiency within households, the second is changes toward more sustainable and renewable energy technologies. It is also concerned about the relationship between these three strategies; turn down and switch off, the purchase of energyefficient appliances, and shift to (more) sustainable energy carriers. BARENERGY combines an individual and institutional approach. This means that individual and household energy behaviour and changes in this behaviour can only be understood by countries with a substantial variation in institutional structure considering individual values, attitudes, norms and knowledge among individuals together with the context in which this behaviour takes place. For this reason, countries with a substantial variation in institutional structure, such as variations in energy providers, were chosen. Barenergy was funded by the European Commission, FP7, and conducted by a multidisciplinary team with researchers from Norway, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.
Researchers involved: dr. Judith de Groot, prof. dr. Linda Steg
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Duration: 2008 – 2010