Social influence and energy efficiency savings

The expected savings from energy efficiency projects are divided into two the technical or direct savings and the nontechnical or indirect savings. The human and social contributions also known as the non-technical savings are rarely acknowledged when quantifying the total expected energy savings although humans are the ones that use the energy. This paper presents an extension for the mathematical model of the social impacts of energy efficiency projects and calculates the total expected energy saving. The indirect/non-technical savings are dependent on the on the type of relationship an individual has with his/her neighbour. In this paper, the functional and conditional probabilities of all the people in a network are determined based on the influence each has on his/her neighbour. An example to illustrate the usefulness of the mathematical model is given for a community of thirty-six households. In the community, a limited number of rebates are given to some members based on how much indirect energy savings they have, these indirect savings help to improve the total expected savings. The results show that the expected energy savings are determined not only on the number of neighbours an individual has but also on the influence he/she has on those neighbours.