The lack of trust in the relationship with consumers may
also have served to undermine the authority and neutrality
of the energy supplier to communicate with the consumer on
matters of energy efficiency and the encouragement of
beneficial behaviour change,” stated the report, “Informing
choices: Consumer views of energy bills.” “Consumers blame
the suppliers and the government for high and increasing
prices and refuse to accept that the only solution is for
them to modify their own behaviour.”
Even worse, customers who are being made to feel wasteful or
guilty for not conserving more could end up being even more
resistant to future campaigns by utilities to get them to
cut back on energy use.
“The price of energy’s gone up so much in the last year,
consumers are having a hard time,” agreed Tara McGeehan,
utilities director at business and technology services firm
Logica. “There’s a general lack of trust.”
However, McGeehan added, pointing the finger solely at
utilities isn’t completely fair. In the UK, for example,
utility companies are forced to deal with the impacts of
rising energy costs while at the same time being mandated by
the government to encourage customers to use less energy
through a universal rollout of smart meters. Such a mandate,
essentially, expects utilities to tell their customers to
buy less of what it is they’re selling … not exactly the
standard business model.
“They don’t benefit from us using less energy,” McGeehan
said. “It’s not really incentivised.”
The responsibility for providing that incentive falls at the
feet of government, which also hasn’t done as well as it
should at promoting its future vision of energy. From the
utilities’ perspective, McGeehan said, what government needs
to do most is encourage the development of more green
energy, so the energy they’re selling doesn’t have the
negative consequences it does today. And for the end-users
of energy, government’s top priority should be “putting the
foot on the pedal and getting smart metering out” as quickly
as possible.
Just as dieters without scales can’t effectively judge how
successful their new eating habits are, energy users without
better insights into their consumption patterns won’t know
where they can best cut their expenses. Smart meters will
help in that regard. So too could better information about
which energy-using appliances — fridges, TVs, water heaters,
etc. — are the hungriest.
Ultimately, both energy companies and government will need
to convince customers that their cooperation is needed to
keep the lights on (and at an affordable cost) in the years
ahead. Because no matter how you look at the energy problem
and its possible solutions — less consumption, more green
energy, new nuclear plants, commercial-ready carbon capture
and storage — one fact will remain: consumers are the ones
who’ll be paying for it all in the end.
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