What are you doing to help customers save?

As our customers seek to manage costs, we can help them by highlighting their options, and even delivering energy savings and energy efficient solutions.

As an energy company, it is in our interest to promote the effective and responsible use of our products. Promoting energy savings is not only a matter of satisfying customers by lowering the energy bill: it is also crucial to lowering overall environmental impact.

We have seen our customers’ interest in energy savings grow, and the understanding of the role energy saving plays in reaching climate goals has increased – but despite the economic benefits of energy saving actions, many are not taken, often due to a lack of awareness.

Given the right information, energy users can access substantial savings. Efficient technical solutions – like low energy light bulbs, more insulation, or high-efficiency boilers and heat pumps can play a major role. Minor behavioral changes like turning off electric appliances on standby can also be important.

In the Nordic region our web site “Live energy smart” (Lev energismart, link to the right) offers customers and the public advice and counselling, and Vattenfall offers process and energy efficiency services to its industrial customers. In Germany, household customers can access advice online - "Energiespartipps" (see link to the right) or at customer centers in Berlin and Hamburg. Commercial customers can choose from a variety of services – including on-site efficiency assessments, consumption visualization, real-time reporting and alerts, and energy saving partnerships.

Similar consumption simulators are available via the web to our customers in Poland, and a recent marketing campaign led to the sale of 209,000 of low-energy light bulbs. Vattenfall has also participated in the modernisation of street lighting systems in cooperation with municipalities and local government. In the Netherlands we offer energy saving services, from advice to implementation projects, for both businesses and households.

Energy savings help offset the cost of curbing climate change

A comprehensive and effective approach to saving energy throughout society – particularly through energy-saving building design and more efficient transportation and industrial solutions – can help offset the higher costs of tomorrow’s energy sources. If the transition to a sustainable society is to succeed, capturing these energy savings is a must.

The European Union has targeted a 20% reduction in energy consumption compared with projected trends by 2020. The German federal government has, among other initiatives, launched a programme to make new and renovated buildings 30% more energy efficient. The Dutch government seeks to reduce overall energy demand by 2% per year between 2011 and 2020, and has targeted 2.4 million buildings for efficiency improvements. Sweden’s integrated climate and energy policy also includes an action plan for energy efficiency with special programs directed to municipalities and energy intensive industry, and the Polish government planned to introduce energy efficiency regulation from 1 January 2010.

Fact box

Vattenfall estimates of potential energy savings in a typical Dutch household