Mathematical modelling for the social impact to energy efficiency savings

Abstract

In this paper, a mathematical model is formulated to quantify the social im- pact an individual has on his/her community when he/she performs any energy e ciency project and transmits that information to his/her neighbours. This model is called the expected power savings model; it combines direct and indi- rect expected power savings of the energy e ciency project for each individual within the network. The indirect savings are quanti ed through the social in- teractions people in the network. The example used in this paper illustrates the e ectiveness of the model by identifying the households who should have free solar water heaters installed in their residential houses based on their in uence through interactions in their community. Two case studies are considered in this paper, single and multiple sources case studies. In the multiple source case study, the results show that it is not necessarily the people with the highest connections who provide the maximum expected power savings.