Government and consumers' organizations agree that reducing energy consumption is necessary in domestic as well as in business and government sectors. The consumers in these different sectors must achieve energy savings through, for example, more energy-conscious behavior. Their behavior can be influenced by various behavioral change strategies, such as information provision, methods to increase involvement, prompts and systematic experience with behavior, followed by feedback, confirmation or rewards (Becker, 1978; Van Houwelingen & Van Raaij, 1989; Winnet & Ester, 1983; see McCalley, 1998 for an overview). However, promoting efficient energy consumption is not the only avenue for resolving energy concerns. Increasingly, solutions are sought at the technical level. This is called efficiency enlargement (Midden & Bartels, 1994). Technical solutions to promote energy savings seem to offer specific advantages over behavioral interventions. After all, technical interventions function primarily without the interference of human behavior. This does not mean that the way the technical innovation is used by the consumer has no influence on energy savings. Several studies in households indicate that a high variance in energy consumption is directly related to the consumption patterns of individual consumers in the same technical environments (Shippee, 1980). Therefore the influence of technical measures on energy consumption also appears to be dependent on consumers' behavior. Furthermore, the effects of certain technical improvements could be undermined because individuals find ways to avoid or eliminate technical measures when these cause inconvenience or are seen to threaten individual freedom (March & Collet, 1986; Van Vugt, Meertens & Van Lange, 1995; Tertoolen, Van Kreveld & Verstraten, 1998). When a person is not free to behave as he or she wants, a motivational state called 'psychological reactance' arises (Brehm, 1966), leading to (sometimes rebellious) actions to restore freedom. Another way in which the effects of technical solutions could be undermined is 'compensating behavior'. This means that people compensate for their energy saving by spending more energy in another domain (the so-called rebound effect, for example leaving PCs and radios on because people work in such energy-efficient buildings). The aim of this study was to evaluate whether an advanced in-business control system in a large office block in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, is effective in reducing energy consumption, and whether this effect is influenced by attitude, motivation and psychological reactance. The control system manages the lighting and strives for both efficient energy consumption and a comfortable indoor environment. One of the features of this control system is a regulator by which employees could establish a certain lighting level between 20 lux and 800 lux (the standard is 500 lux). The system also contains daylight-dependent regulating equipment that manages the established lighting levels: when there is more daylight the level of the artificial light is dimmed, and vice versa. Another feature is an absence detector: when the employee is absent for more than 15 minutes, the artificial light is automatically switched off. For the benefit of the study, the system was introduced in phases. Consumers had access to the advanced features of the system only in the experimental group. The consumers in the control group had to accept the conventional adjustment of the control system, as in most other business settings. Because consumers in the experimental group could not select the advanced equipment of the inbusiness control system, and because certain energy-related acts were automatically controlled by the system, a restriction of freedom of choice and loss of control of the consumers' environment was expected. Reactance could be a consequence. Different hypotheses were considered. On the basis of the advanced technical qualities of the control system, it was expected that in the experimental group less energy related to artificial light would be used than in the control group, in spite of the ability of users in the experimental group to adjust their lighting level above the standard of 500 lux. Because of practical difficulties we were unable to use a design with a pre-test during which both the experimental group and the control group were limited to the conventional adjustment of the control system. As a consequence, in this study energy savings could be defined only in relation to the control group. Therefore, the term 'energy savings' refers, implicitly or explicitly, to a comparison between the experimental and the control group. Second, consumer satisfaction with the technical equipment, as well as their level of satisfaction when dealing with the system for a long period, was also investigated. There were no specific expectations regarding possible differences in satisfaction between the experimental and control group. Third, the study examined the extent to which the realized savings were connected with the consumers' attitudes towards energy savings. Various studies have shown that attitude is a good predictor of actual energy-saving behavior if the measurement of the attitude is specific enough (Cunningham & Lopreato, 1977; Heberlein & Black, 1976; Farhar et al., 1980; Milstein, 1977; Tashchian & Slama, 1985; Seligman, 1986). Based on these findings, the following hypothesis was formulated: The more positive the consumers' attitudes towards energy savings, the less energy will be consumed in the experimental as well as in the control group. The effect of the consumers' motivations on energy savings was also measured. This led to the following hypothesis: The more motivated consumers are to save energy, the less the energy consumption will be in both the experimental and the control group. No hypotheses were formulated with regard to differences in attitude and motivation between the experimental and the control group. The relationship between psychological reactance and energy consumption was measured in two ways. First, we assessed the resistance of users to the in-business control system and the consequent effect of this resistance on energy conservation. More resistance was expected in the experimental group than in the control group. Second, psychological reactance was measured as a personal characteristic (Hong & Page, 1989; Hong, 1992). When consumers in the experimental group attach greater value to their personal freedom, and their motivation to restore their personal freedom is greater when this personal freedom is threatened, they can be expected to use more energy. No such effect was expected in the control group. Finally, we investigated whether a number of factors, for example factors that were related to the presence or absence of users, influenced light-related energy consumption. After all, the absence detector would lead to more energy savings while the consumers are absent during the day. For this reason, a correction was made for the function of the user and the number of people that share the room. Additionally, the side of the building (north, east, south or west) one is working in would be expected to influence the effect in energy savings. The energy consumption on the south side of the building could be smaller because of the greater amount of daylight.