Hands on CFLs in Austria
Hands on CFLs in Austria
Austrian electric utilities and CFL manufacturers have prepared a box containing lamps for residential customers, who can borrow the box to test commercially available CFLs installed in their homes. Of the consumers who have had a chance to evaluate CFLs in their home, more than 90 % say that they are going to buy some.
In 1991, Austria's approximately 3 million households consumed an average of 3 950 kWh electricity, excluding home and water heating. Lighting accounts for 5-10% of household electricity consumption, which gives a typical household lighting electricity consumption of ~200-400 kWh/year. To improve the awareness of and willingness to buy compact fluorescent lamps among residential customers, the Austrian Association of Electric Utilities, jointly with manufacturers of CFLs, launched a "hands-on" lamp information program in 1994.
The utilities and the lighting industry prepared a lamp-box that is lent for free to residential customers who can test commercially available CFLs at home for a couple of days. By lending out lamp-boxes for free, the "psychological barriers" against CFLs (such as uncertainty about the technology in combination with high initial costs) will be lowered considerably, the utilities hope. Also, when household customers return the lamp-boxes together with a questionnaire, the utilities have an opportunity to discuss how to use electricity and energy more efficiently.
MORE BOXES PRODUCED
The customer service offices of the 44 participating utilities administer the program boxes. At the start of the program, the energy advisors at the utilities were supplied with a total of 250 boxes. Each box contained eight commercially available CFLs, ranging from 9 W to 24 W. As the waiting-lists rapidly grew longer, 140 additional boxes were produced.
Apart from some minor problems with broken CFLs, the program has encountered hardly any difficulties. Program managers claim that although customers need not leave a deposit, all boxes have been returned on time. Should a CFL be missing or broken, the utility simply replaces the CFL without asking any questions.
Participating utilities range from county and municipal utilities to companies with a smaller supply area. County utilities asked for up to 60 boxes, whereas, on average, municipalities only requested two or three. Small private electricity distributors were also supplied with one or two boxes.
The program did not focus on moral ("good for the environment") or rational appeals ("save money"). In fact, the program's intentions have simply been to motivate the customers to compare the quality of light of CFLs with that provided by incandescent lamps; to see whether CFLs, which differ in shape from incandescents, fit their lamps at home; and to try energy-efficiency in practice.
CUSTOMERS LIKE CFLs
The program is still under way-it was never intended to be only a one-time activity-and thus a final evaluation has not been made. However, a preliminary evaluation of the replies turned in at one of the participating utilities suggests that there has been a remarkably high degree of acceptance of the program by the customers: 94% of them responded that they intend to install CFLs at home. There hasn't been a follow-up study to see how many of these customers actually did buy one or more CFLs. However, when one of the large county utilities, OKA of Upper Austria with 350 000 customers, ran a customer rebate scheme recently, customer responses were substantially higher compared with responses obtained in a similar campaign one year earlier.
Post-program evaluations will be made to assess the reasons for customer participation or non-participation. A thorough evaluation process will identify the weaknesses and strengths of the program. "However, we already know that the program has been successful", says Wilhelm Ritter of OKA. "Both utilities and the industry are very content with the program".
Each box is being lent to an average of two households each week. Thus the program reaches about 40 000 households over a year, that is, a little more than one percent of all residential customers. But the utilities hope that these customers will help to spread positive attitudes towards CFLs among their neighbors and friends. CFL acceptance should be facilitated by a national CFL promotional campaign, scheduled to run in the first quarter of 1996 on TV and radio and in the printed media.
Nils Borg
Contacts:
Tomas Müller
Association of Austrian Electric
Utilities, Vienna.
Tel: +43 1 505 17 27
Fax: +43 1 505 12 18
Wilhelm A. Ritter
Upper Austrian Utility (OKA)
Tel: +43 732 6593 3562
Fax: +43 732 6593 3547