Search

Energy demand, usually indicated by the amount of energy currently consumed in different sectors, is a key factor in national and international energy and climate change policy. In the energy world, demand has different meanings and associations: it often figures as the logical partner to ‘supply’; it is tied to interpretations of ‘need’; and it is the subject of various forms of intervention, including methods of ‘demand side’ management. In this chapter we distinguish between definitions that (a) interpret demand as the energy required to meet current and future needs and (b) those that take energy demand to be inseparable from the constitution of energy services and social practices. The latter position highlights the ongoing dynamics of demand and the part that policy makers and others play in establishing and changing what people do and the energy requirements that follow.

It has long been recognised that energy is not consumed for its own sake but for the services that it provides. Despite this, the majority of energy policy and research remains firmly focused on energy itself: approaching it as a resource that is measured in units like kWh or cubic meters and that is knowingly and rationally acquired, used and managed. This chapter challenges interpretations of energy as a resource by developing and extending the concept of energy services. This approach generates new ideas and insights for those involved in reducing and managing energy demand.

Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in using ‘smart’ technologies: to can gather information about a building and its inhabitants, and automatically make decisions about which appliances and services should be powered. Promoting smart homes is frequently seen as a means of reducing energy demand. However, this chapter shows that smart home technologies are also positioned and sold as means of enhancing convenience or creating a cosy atmosphere. In increasing expectations of service, and in relying on energy-intensive infrastructures like network technology and data centres, smart home technologies might not reduce demand at all.

The goal of increasing the energy efficiency of products, buildings and processes has been at the heart of national and international policies from the 1970s onwards. Running against conventional wisdom, this chapter highlights the limitations and the potentially counterproductive side effects of an unthinking pursuit of energy efficiency, whether alone or as part of a broader ‘whole systems’ approach. Two main critiques of energy efficiency are considered. The first focuses on the problem of ‘rebound’, the second on interpretations of normality and service that are unavoidably embedded in measures of efficiency and in related policies. If energy efficiency is to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, questions about sufficiency need to come first: What is energy used for? How much energy do societies ‘need’? How much consumption is compatible with meeting carbon targets?.

Energy research and energy-related policy making are informed by terms, ideas and stories that reproduce certain ways of thinking about problems and responses. As in other fields, phrases enter common usage, concepts become taken for granted, and shared vocabularies form. Disciplines and approaches build on these foundations, often forgetting that what seems like obvious, or common wisdom has a history: it is not set in stone nor is it uncontested or uncontroversial. The essays included in this collection explore different aspects of what we refer to as ‘fables’ in the energy world.

In the energy field, picking the ‘low hanging fruit’ means taking measures that are simple to implement and that generate quick returns in terms of carbon and energy demand reduction. In taking this term seriously and in taking it apart this chapter shows how the language of low hanging fruit situates and frames both the problem and the politics of energy demand reduction. As described, the phrase reproduces and reinforces a distinctly technocratic approach that bypasses fundamental questions about what energy is used for in society, and how this changes over time. Other metaphors – including references to fungi – could be developed in support of more subtle and more integrated accounts of how energy policies, technologies and patterns of demand affect each other.