T
he energy landscape is changing rapidly, and consumers are seeing these changes in many more forms than they have in the past. With continual advancements in technology highly correlated to energy usage, overall home energy should be a bigger part of future discussions.
The Energy Solutions Center recently completed a national consumer study that was exploratory in nature, with a goal of defining how consumers feel about many home energy topics, including current energy usage/preferences/satisfaction, specific opinions related to natural gas for home energy, environmental issues facing the United States, the influence of natural gas on environmental issues, willingness to change lifestyle to help the environment, awareness and opinions of green energy, support of state policies and regulations in reducing greenhouse gas, and awareness of and opinions on renewable energy. A total of 1,312 online surveys were completed from June 21 to July 5, 2021.
These results may be helpful for utilities as they continue to seek more ways to serve their customers.
Natural gas usage varies by region; the South utilizes more electricity for household needs, for example. The study found that satisfaction with home heating, water heating and cooking is significantly higher for natural gas households than electric households. These findings mimic previous studies.
Interestingly, though, we posed a new question for all consumers: “Imagine that a friend was building a new home and had the option of choosing natural gas or electricity for their home heating, cooking, water heating and clothes drying. If they could only choose one energy source for those applications, which would you recommend—electric or natural gas?” More than half of respondents (55%) stated natural gas—significantly more in the Northeast and Central areas compared to the South and West. What is more interesting is that when we analyzed answers to this question by respondents who have natural gas now, the recommendation percentages increased substantially according to burner tips: one burner tip (45%), two burner tips (60%) and three or more burner tips (82%).
The reasons for recommending natural gas resoundingly relate to lower costs, with more than half stating this in an open-ended fashion. Other reasons are that natural gas is cleaner, better for cooking, more efficient and more reliable.
We then wanted to know what influences respondents’ energy decisions for their primary residence. A battery of statements was offered, and consumers could select as many of these influencers as applicable. The primary influencer for home energy was “I want the best value for my home,” with 66% selecting it. This was followed by safety (47%), financial incentives/rebates (37%) and environmental/climate change (33%).
We next queried consumers on multiple home-energy options (natural gas, electric, propane, heating oil, solar and wind) and their opinions related to each of the following variables; consumers had to choose one energy choice for each:
Finally, we asked all respondents to rate their agreement with multiple statements specific to natural gas. The statement with the highest agreement was that natural gas is a reliable and efficient energy source for the household, followed closely by natural gas provides an abundant energy supply (to the country), is the best choice for cooking, costs less for water heating, and provides more continuous hot water and the most comfortable home heating. Lower agreement was noted in natural gas being the energy source that will help achieve carbon emission goals, will increase the value of your home and is environmentally friendly. However, note that natural gas households had significantly higher agreement ratings for all attributes.
The survey then switched to questions related to the environment, where consumers ranked environmental issues from the most important to the least important.
Climate change is clearly the No. 1 issue, with 30% of respondents selecting it as the most important; this was followed by water quality (12%), air pollution (11%) and water shortages (10%).
We asked if natural gas has a positive, negative or no influence for each issue. Climate change was polarizing, as consumers nearly equally said natural gas has a negative (28%) and positive (29%) influence. More importantly, a third (34%) stated they did not know the effect that natural gas has on climate change. All other issues show consumers stating that natural gas has more of a positive influence than a negative influence.
Next, we wanted to understand what consumers would do to change their lifestyle to positively change or help the environment. In general, a vast majority (88%) would be willing to change their lifestyle to help. We then asked those who would be willing to help if they would still do so if they had a 10% increase in their home energy bill. More than half (59%) said they would. But as home energy bills increase, the willingness, not surprisingly, begins to wane. Roughly a third (34%) would be willing with a 20% increase in their home energy bill, but only 1 in 5 (20%) would be willing with a 30% increase.
In an open-ended fashion, we also asked consumers, “Please define what ‘green’ energy means to you.” The top two quantified definitions were “clean/low carbon/less pollutants” and “environmentally friendly,” at 31% each. The third most-stated definition was “natural energy source” (25%).
We took this question further by highlighting several green energy statements to understand whether these statements aligned with consumer perception of what green energy is. Most consumers agreed with “Good for the environment” (74%), followed by “Produces less carbon emissions” (64%) and “Renewable” (63%). Interestingly, green energy was not deemed as expensive, with only 23% showing alignment of that statement with their perception.
When it comes to state policies and regulations related to greenhouse gas and emissions, consumers do show support, but at a higher “general” level. Almost 2 out of 3 (63%) say they would support state government policies and regulations in reducing greenhouse gas and emissions from home energy. But when asked if they would support state policies that mandate the type of home energy sources available, only 38% said yes.
Roughly 7 in 10 consumers have some sort of general knowledge of renewable energy—defined as wind, solar, renewable natural gas and bioenergy—and 1 in 10 state they are very knowledgeable on renewable energy. When asked about which would be the most important renewable energy sources in the next 10 years, solar (69%), wind (48%) and RNG (39%) are the top choices. One in 10 consumers (9%) stated they were unsure.
Almost 2 out of 3 (62%) state they would incorporate renewable energy into their home energy mix. One-fourth (25%) said they would pay 5% more, and roughly 1 in 5 (18%) said they would pay 15% more to incorporate it. Most important, almost 4 in 10 (38%) did not know if they would pay anything more as they would need more information.
Our understanding of how consumers feel about home energy and its relation to ever-changing environmental issues will continue to evolve over time. How the natural gas industry aligns with what is important to consumers will be essential for long-term growth.