Evaluation of on-site energy consulting in North Rhine-Westphalia

Thermografie am Beispiel eines Einfamilienhauses

The energy consulting project “Winning private households in North Rhine-Westphalia for the Energy Transition (ENeRWin)” of the Consumer Advice Centre North Rhine-Westphalia defines itself as a consulting and information initiative for energy savings, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Among the key product elements is the “Energy consulting at your home” service, a 90-minute session providing energetic renovation consulting for clients in their own home with a focus on building envelope and heating.

ifeu and Kantar EMNID were commissioned to evaluate energy consulting in the ENeRWin project. The goal of the evaluation was to determine the effectiveness of the service “Energy consulting at your home”. Key operative elements of the evaluation were interviews with clients receiving consulting in the summer of 2016. The interviews were conducted by Kantar EMNID. Data analysis was carried out by ifeu. Data from the interviews allowed the modelling of energy, CO2 savings and investment costs with the ifeu building model GEMOD. Furthermore, there were detailed questions on constraints preventing exterior wall insulation and the temporal perspectives of insulation measures.

The evaluation demonstrates the energetic effectiveness of on-site energy consulting services of the Consumer Advice Centre North Rhine-Westphalia, thus showing a distinct positive influence on realised final energy consumption reductions and in consequence, greenhouse gas savings. In comparison with previous evaluation results for other services of the Consumer Advice Centre North Rhine-Westphalia, the (final energy) savings effects were slightly higher. Another positive outcome of the evaluation were a number of consulting effects beyond the actual quantifiable energy savings. Among these are initiated investment, prevention of bad investment, guidance on funding options, and overall consumer education.

Runtime

May 2016 – December 2016

Client

Consumer Advice Centre North Rhine-Westphalia

Partner

Kantar EMNID, Bielefeld