Energy Cultures 2

New Zealand's transport and business sectors have the greatest potential for significant energy savings, and increased competitiveness through energy efficiency. Households also have much to gain through warmer, drier homes and energy savings. Energy Cultures 2 is a 4-year research project to develop the knowledge and tools to achieve these changes.

Energy Cultures are where our technologies, practices and norms lock us in to certain patterns of (often inefficient) energy use. The Energy Cultures research programme examines these habitual patterns, and what needs to change to support changes in energy behaviour.

In January 2017 the Energy Cultures research programme was awarded ‘gold status’ by its funder, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. This status means ‘performing above expectations’ based on MBIE’s evaluation of the team’s annual report [link to annual report – see attached]. Highlights included (a) the widespread adoption, in New Zealand and internationally, of the Energy Cultures framework as a way of understanding behaviour, (b) the development of an empirical measure of the dimensions of energy culture, (c) new insights into efficient driving, (d) contributions to electric vehicle policy, and (e) a system dynamics model of electric vehicle uptake.