Reduce emissions, consumption and bills by lowering your temperature by just one degree

The purpose of the study was to better understand the possible impact of minor changes in our everyday lives. Something barely noticeable in terms of comfort, can have very positive effects. Insights like these make us more motivated and increase our awareness of energy consumption in our home. You'll also figure out how many times you can take a Tesla to the moon and back vs. if all households in Norway and Sweden lowered their temperature by just one degree. Spoiler: quite a few times.

Smart technology makes it possible to study energy consumption

The study was carried out on 1264 detached houses in Norway and Sweden, all with a heat pump connected to a Sensibo smart thermostat via Tibber. The average size of the houses in the study was 182 m2. Tibber offers various types of smart technology that make it easier for customers to gain control over their energy consumption. By using this technology, we were able to conduct a larger study of heating in houses (for the first time in Scandinavia), and figure out how much money and energy the average home can save, simply by lowering the average temperature by one single degree.

“The result of our study is a clear example that ‘many small streams’ actually make a difference. Lowering the temperature at home in this way is hardly noticeable, but it gives a lower electricity bill and makes a big difference in terms of our total energy consumption and emissions related to energy production” - Edgeir Vårdal Aksnes, founder and CEO of Tibber.

The result shows that lowering the temperature by one degree would reduce the energy consumption by 111 kWh per month. This equates to savings of roughly 113 SEK a month, which is not something that floors you, but as touched upon earlier: many small streams make a big river! However, what would happen if all the houses in Norway and Sweden followed suit?

To the moon and back with a Tesla

We found out. If all the houses in Norway and Sweden reduced the temperature by an average of one degree, it would result in a reduction of 220 million kWh a month – which is the equivalent to driving to the moon and back in a Tesla 2400 times! It would also result in a reduction of 209,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per month. This is equivalent to 27,000 football pitches of rainforest being destroyed – every month.

We were able to carry out this study by automatically lowering the temperature in the selected houses by one degree. All the data was collected between January and April 2019. By using artificial intelligence that detects patterns of behaviour in energy consumption, the Tibber app can show an aggregate of the consumption levels in each house. When lowering the indoor temperature by only one degree, the total energy consumption is reduced by 5.17%, and heating by 6.96%. Households that use a heating source other than a heat pump (i.e. less effective solutions) will save even more.

The best thing about this is that you don't necessarily need to reduce the temperature when you're home and awake, you can simply just have it a bit colder at night and at times when you're not at home. This can easily be done with smart heating via Tibber. 

Lower your energy consumption by 9.3%

Up to 70% of the energy consumed in households is used for heating. With smart heating, you can control your energy usage in a smarter way, and reduce your consumption and energy bill. Tibber customers save an average of 9.3% on smart heating in combination with smart thermometers such as the Sensibo Sky. 

Read more about smart heating here.