How Much Electricity Consumption is Too Little?

This excerpt is from UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute Blog, June 3, 2019, by James Bushnell:

Energy efficiency world views collide.

There are two dueling, strongly held, views on the definition of energy efficiency. The idea of energy efficiency, at least to economists, is to overcome market failures that can lead to people consuming energy even when the full societal costs of the energy exceed their benefits. An alternative perspective also pervades policy circles. This perspective appears to be that people should just use less energy, period. To economists, this view is a perversion of the notion of energy efficiency. Energy efficiency should be about the efficient use of energy, not the non-use of energy.

To read the complete article, please visit the Energy Institute Blog here.