Homebody save energy, good for the environment

Despite significant progress in energy efficiency, all the same in recent decades, humanity consumes more and more energy, which is very sad impact on the environment. For example, in the United States, the total energy consumption of households from 1975 to 2015 increased by 39%, that is, for each resident the increase was 6%.

Electricity consumption is closely related to lifestyle changes, which are influenced by the rapid development of technology, as well as social, economic and demographic factors. The greatest impact on the lifestyle of people had an IT development.

Analysis of lifestyle and its impact on energy consumption is usually carried out by two methods:

1. Analysis of retail sales of goods and services (different goods and services are associated with different amounts of energy consumed: for example, this affects the size of the house or the displacement and energy efficiency of the car).
2. Analysis of the behavior of the amount of time that people devote to different types of activity, in time and place. The choice of activities has a strong effect on energy consumption in many sectors of the economy (for example, after retirement a person spends more time at home, does not need an office, and usually travels less, which affects energy consumption in the home, commercial transport segments, respectively) .

The authors of the new study from the University of Texas at Austin and the Rochester Institute of Technology studied how changes in time spent on different activities, that is, how changes in the way of life of Americans affected energy consumption in different sectors. For example, the spread of information technology suggests that a person will spend more time at home on work, shopping and entertainment. In turn, this means a reduction in energy consumption in transport and in commercial real estate, with an increase in household energy consumption.
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Indeed, the statistics collected over the decades allows us to make such estimates. It shows that especially noticeable changes in lifestyle began to occur in the last decade, with a noticeable spread of the Internet, computers and various gadgets.

For example, from 2003 to 2012, Americans began to spend at home an average of 7.8 days a year more, while at the same time they began to spend significantly less time in transport and commercial / public buildings.

Statistics on transport shows that the distance that the average American traveled during the year on various modes of transport increased steadily from 6,200 miles in 1975 to 10,100 miles in 2008, and then began to decline and reached 9,500 miles in 2014. Less mileage in transport means more time somewhere else, most likely at home.

Scientists have compiled a model that links the round-the-clock activity of people at their location and historical changes in energy consumption by sector: home transport and non-commercial real estate (offices, shops). They also made up a model that finds a relationship and makes a prediction on how energy consumption will change when a certain type of activity changes.

Existing studies have collected statistics on many types of activity (up to 465). In this case, the authors distributed them according to a key factor: location. It turned out that all activities can be divided into three places: the house, transport and commercial / public building.

What happened?

The following table shows the change in American habits over 10 years in time (in units) spent on various activities.



But how does a change in this activity manifest itself in a change in energy consumption, given the impact of each activity on home energy consumption, transportation, and energy consumption in non-commercial / public buildings.



Thus, over 10 years, Americans began to spend significantly more time at home (+7.8 days) and significantly less in transport / travel (-1.2 days) and commercial buildings, such as office buildings and shops (-6.7 days) Accordingly, in the homes, energy consumption increased, while in transport and other buildings it decreased by a larger amount. According to scientists, such a change in lifestyle only in 2012 led to savings of 1,700 trillion BTU of electricity (1 kWh = 3,412.14 BTU), which is 1.8% of the national energy consumption.

So, information technologies and home lifestyle in reality reduce energy consumption on a national scale. This is their environmental benefit.

The scientific article was published on January 29, 2018 in the journal Joule (doi: 10.1016 / j.joule.2018.01.003).