Triple climate protection through electricity savings and reinvestment in renewable energies

In order to advance the energy turnaround, Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS) is planning and testing a new business model in cooperation with Oeko-Institut and Büro oe-quadrat within the context of this project sponsored by the Federal Foundation for the Environment (DBU). The aim is to promote energy efficiency, electricity efficiency and renewable energies in equal measure, to win new customers for them and strengthen customer loyalty. The basic idea of the business model is to advise customers that they consume significantly less electricity and to spend the savings in their electricity costs in the subsequent years to enable the installation of a common photovoltaic system. For this purpose, households on site receive in-depth advice on energy-saving from EWS, including direct installation of energy-saving small appliances (also to save heat and water/warm water). The approach shall be tested with 100 households as a model and under practical conditions. If the business model proves to be successful, it can be continued and upscaled, and can also be used by other energy suppliers. The project is innovative because it overcomes the classic barriers to saving electricity by surprisingly combining it with the resulting investment in PV systems, and at the same time avoids rebound effects by using the saved electricity costs elsewhere (unecologically). The resulting environmental relief goes far beyond other projects - on the one hand because the percentage of energy-saving households will increase significantly, and on the other hand through the additional installation of PV systems.