Numbers, stories, energy efficiency

Panel: 1. Foundations of future energy policy

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Mithra Moezzi, Portland State University, USA

Abstract

This paper explores the role of quantification in energy efficiency policy and research, and advocates for modernizing quantification practices. Efficiency policy rests on numbers and stories about these numbers, which together shape problems as suitable for human action and guide what solutions seem desirable or possible. This occurs on many levels, from practical definitions of energy efficiency to long-term policy goals. Drawing on policy sciences and the philosophy of statistics, we show why something as basic as quantification merits a closer, social sciences-based, look.

Energy is used in diverse, complex, and dynamic ways, and configurations change constantly over time. Numerical summaries and protocols for judging efficiency always reduce and simplify. They are generally poor at conveying change and relationship. So it is crucial to attend to what numerical summaries and protocols do – what they express, standardize, and hide —and consequences thereof. The paper analyses some current energy metrics to illustrate the difference that “how you measure” makes. In turn, the stories associated with efficiency quantification provide schemas of what efficiency means and how it can (or did) happen. These stories develop to “stick” politically, but often incorporate little of the complexity of relationships and interactions that are the hallmark of society and energy systems within. These over-simplifications are especially problematic in the era of climate change, climate change policy, and internationalism.

The paper suggests improvements to how metrics are used and interpreted, and underscores the need for more intense scrutiny of quantification practices and better recognition of the limits of quantification. There is no perfect metric, but there is a need to more fully understand what they do, and to create policy visions and causal stories that better recognize diversity, interaction, and the role of people in creating and changing energy use, versus just as buyers and users of efficient hardware. These new stories and aesthetics of quantification can help bridge gaps between what policy now aims to control and what would make more difference.