Dataset on information strategies for energy conservation: A field experiment in India.

The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled: "Information strategies for energy conservation: a field experiment in India" (Chen et al., 2017) [1]. The availability of high-resolution electricity data offers benefits to both utilities and consumers to understand the dynamics of energy consumption for example, between billing periods or times of peak demand. However, few public datasets with high-temporal resolution have been available to researchers on electricity use, especially at the appliance-level. This article describes data collected in a residential field experiment for 19 apartments at an Indian faculty housing complex during the period from August 1, 2013 to May 12, 2014. The dataset includes detailed information about electricity consumption. It also includes information on apartment characteristics and hourly weather variation to enable further studies of energy performance. These data can be used by researchers as training datasets to evaluate electricity usage consumption.

Nonprice incentives and energy conservation.

In the electricity sector, energy conservation through technological and behavioral change is estimated to have a savings potential of 123 million metric tons of carbon per year, which represents 20% of US household direct emissions in the United States. In this article, we investigate the effectiveness of nonprice information strategies to motivate conservation behavior. We introduce environment and health-based messaging as a behavioral strategy to reduce energy use in the home and promote energy conservation. In a randomized controlled trial with real-time appliance-level energy metering, we find that environment and health-based information strategies, which communicate the environmental and public health externalities of electricity production, such as pounds of pollutants, childhood asthma, and cancer, outperform monetary savings information to drive behavioral change in the home. Environment and health-based information treatments motivated 8% energy savings versus control and were particularly effective on families with children, who achieved up to 19% energy savings. Our results are based on a panel of 3.4 million hourly appliance-level kilowatt-hour observations for 118 residences over 8 mo. We discuss the relative impacts of both cost-savings information and environmental health messaging strategies with residential consumers.

Health and safety practices in the nanomaterials workplace: results from an international survey.

This article reports the findings of an international survey of nanomaterials firms and laboratories regarding their environmental health and safety (EHS) programs, engineering controls, personal protective equipment (PPE), exposure monitoring, waste disposal, product stewardship, and risk beliefs. While many participants reported not believing that nanomaterials pose special risks, nanospecific EHS programs were still widely reported. Most nanospecific EHS programs appeared to build from general EHS programs but included nanospecific workplace engineering controls and recommendations for clothing, gloves, eye protection, and respirators. Organizations with nanospecific EHS programs also reported providing product (safe use) guidance to consumers. However, workplace monitoring and nanospecific waste disposal were uneven and were only associated with the subset of organizations believing in special risks. A majority of organizations expressed a need for more toxicological information and EHS guidance. Overall, this study suggests that nanomaterials firms and laboratories are already attentive to nanospecific EHS and product stewardship issues. However, improved risk communication is needed to further the implementation of related programs. Organizations that are wholly inattentive to EHS would likely engage in nanospecific EHS upon implementing a staffed, general EHS program.