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Recurrent Mobility: Urban Conduits for Diffusion of Energy Efficiency.
Neda Mohammadi1, John E Taylor2
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0355, United States.
Urban energy efficiency improvements are lagging. Recurrent mobility, or people’s regular travel patterns, significantly drives energy efficiency adoption in buildings, outpacing direct interventions. Targeting mobility hubs can accelerate progress toward global energy targets.
Area of Science:
- Urban planning and energy systems analysis.
- Social science and mobility studies.
Background:
- Global energy efficiency improvements are accelerating but must double by 2030 to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda targets.
- Buildings are major urban energy consumers, yet energy efficiency interventions face suboptimal adoption rates, known as the energy efficiency gap.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the factors influencing the adoption of energy efficiency measures in urban buildings.
- To compare the impact of direct versus indirect (spillover) effects on energy efficiency diffusion.
- To identify effective strategies for accelerating energy efficiency adoption to meet the 2030 UN energy targets.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of over 18.8 million individual positional records against Greater London's building energy consumption data over one year.
- Comparison of direct intervention effects with indirect spillover effects driven by population mobility patterns.
- Identification of spatiotemporal dependencies between energy use, social interactions, and mobility.
Main Results:
- Indirect effects, specifically those stemming from recurrent mobility, are the primary drivers of energy efficiency diffusion in urban buildings.
- Recurrent mobility acts as a crucial conduit for the spread of energy efficiency practices, significantly outperforming direct interventions.
- Spatiotemporal dependencies at the intersection of energy use and social interactions underpin these diffusion dynamics.
Conclusions:
- Interventions to enhance building energy efficiency must strategically target locations and times that serve as hubs for both energy consumption and social interaction.
- Recurrent mobility patterns offer a novel and effective approach to complement existing strategies for improving energy efficiency adoption.
- Leveraging insights from recurrent mobility can significantly contribute to achieving the ambitious 2030 UN energy efficiency targets.
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