Mathematical modelling for the social impact to energy efficiency savings

• Mathematical model for social impacts of energy efficiency projects is formulated.
• Single source and multiple source cases are considered.
• A case study of providing solar water heaters is used to evaluate the model.
• The network data used is a 56-member household.
• For multiple source nodes with highest connections do not provide highest savings.

In this paper, a mathematical model is formulated to quantify the social impact an individual has on his/her community when he/she performs any energy efficiency project and transmits that information to his/her neighbours. This model is called the expected power savings model; it combines direct and indirect expected power savings of the energy efficiency project for each individual within the network. The indirect savings are quantified through the social interactions people in the network. The example used in this paper illustrates the effectiveness of the model by identifying the households who should have free solar water heaters installed in their residential houses based on their influence 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.