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Saving energy is an essential issue in the world to attenuate climate change. To achieve the goal, energy-saving appliances such as refrigerators should be promoted. This study aims to analyze the conditions enabling Japanese households to purchase such appliances, focusing on the relation with preferences for renewable energy as one of the non-monetary incentives.

A conjoint analysis is used. A random parameter logit model and nested logit model are used for estimation. Data were collected through an online questionnaire of the Rakuten Insight service.

Households will purchase energy-saving appliances when renewable energy is used for electricity generation. This implies that households will purchase energy-saving appliances with electric power generators by renewable energy such as solar panels and home micro-wind generators.

The response rate and attributes of respondents and non-respondents are not shown to researchers in the web-questionnaire service.

Promoting energy-saving appliances and renewable energy is essential in Japan (as in other countries) to save energy and to attenuate climate change. Based on the results, both energy-saving appliances and renewable energy will be widely used.

Although many studies have analyzed households’ preferences for energy-saving appliances and the effects of non-monetary incentives, studies that mentioned the relation with preferences for renewable energy are few. This study analyzes the relation and proposes policy recommendations to promote both energy-saving appliances and renewable energy.

This study examines how consumption values influence consumers' purchase intention of energy-efficient home appliances in South Africa, an emerging market. The study further investigates the mediating role of consumers' attention to energy-efficient labels affixed on home appliances while making a purchase decision and the moderating effect of consumer trust in the environmental claims.

Using a quantitative approach, this study relied on self-administered questionnaires to collect data from 505 household representatives in South Africa's Gauteng Province. The proposed conceptual model was empirically tested using structural equation modelling, moderation and mediation analyses.

The results revealed that economic, emotional and social values can only influence consumers' intention to purchase energy-efficient appliances if consumers pay attention to the energy-efficiency label affixed on the appliance. Functional value, however, has a significant direct impact on purchase intention. Moreover, the results indicate that trust in energy-efficiency labels strengthens the effect of functional and emotional values on consumers' attention to energy-efficiency labels.

Findings of this study highlight the importance of capturing the attention of consumers to energy-efficiency labels during the buying process as well as increasing their trust in those labels. Results indicate that consumers are more attracted to the functional and social values that energy-efficient appliances provide. This study is of particular interest to policymakers, retailers and manufacturers, as it sheds light on key strategies to implement to effectively promote the purchase of energy-efficient household appliances in South Africa.

Energy conservation literacy within households is a contemporary and topical issue globally. However, scant research has been conducted on energy-saving literacy amongst Ghanaian households. To substantiate the problem, this paper aims to examine energy conservation literacy and behaviours among Ghanaian households in the Greater Accra Region.

The study assessed household electricity use and explored determinants of household energy conservation behaviours. Data was collected through a survey administered to households within the target region and analysed using descriptive statistics and Spearmen’s rank correlation.

Results showed electricity conservation among households is greatly influenced by the number of household occupants, household income levels, and the quality and quantity of appliances. The study also found that conservation behaviours are positively correlated to the number of occupants, household income levels, the quantity of electrical appliances, age of household members, number of rooms and level of urbanization within the home’s geographical region. Cumulatively, the findings suggest households held positive attitudes towards efficient energy practices. Enigmatically, the use of energy-conserving alternative technologies was not widely used by households; hence, this factor does not significantly affect household energy conservation.

Although limited to Ghana’s capital region, the findings can be used to inform policy and regulations at the regional and national levels in designing an efficient and effective mechanism to reduce the country’s overall energy use.

Premised upon the findings, the study recommends an intensification of education and awareness-creation on various energy-saving regulations and initiatives and thorough education on the usage of standardized (approved) refrigerators to promote the consistent adoption of energy conservation measures among households.

This study pioneers investigations into the influence of household demographic variables on overall electricity conservation behaviours exhibited by Ghanaian households

The purpose of this paper is to examine potential demand side management (DSM) programs in terms of their impacts to the overall economy in Thailand.

A multi‐sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of Thailand has been developed to accomplish the objectives of this study. The potential DSM program considered refers to replacement of less efficient electrical appliances with their efficient counterparts in the household sector in Thailand.

The study finds that the economy‐wide impacts of the DSM program (e.g., economic welfare, GDP, international trade) depend on three key factors: the project economics of the DSM option or the ratio of unit cost of electricity savings to price of electricity (CPR); the implementation strategy of the DSM option; and scale or size of the DSM option. This paper shows that the welfare impacts of the DSM programs would improve along with the project economics of the DSM programs. If the DSM program is implemented under the CDM, the welfare impacts would increase along with the price for certified emission reductions units. On the other hand, the welfare impacts would increase up to the optimal size or scale of the program, but would start to deteriorate if the size is increased further.

The welfare function considered in this paper does not account for benefits of local air pollution reductions. The study provides crucial insights on designing DSM projects in Thailand to ensure that DSM programs are beneficial for the economy as a whole.

Analyses of DSM options under the CDM using CGE models are not available in the literature. This is the first paper in this area.

Identifying ideas for frugal innovations could substantially support engineers and managers in their work. Patents may be a promising source of ideas for frugal innovations. The purpose of this paper is to show how patents of this kind can be identified.

Prior work has developed a generic process model to identify frugal patent candidates. They use semantic analysis and a frugal thesaurus for searching and characterizing frugal patent candidates. The question is, whether and how this process model can be applied to a different industry successfully? The field of small household appliances is selected as a testbed because it is known for including frugal innovations while having a different business model than the industrial field in which the thesaurus was developed.

Applying the process model leads to a number of 22 strongly frugal patent candidates, which are manually evaluated based on three frugal characteristics. Due to this analysis, a high fraction of the candidates could be identified as frugal patents, which validates the process model. In addition, this paper outlines several options for enhancing the process model, e.g. by separating between a frugal search and a frugal evaluation thesaurus.

The process model to identify frugal patent candidates can be used by engineers and technology managers to find ideas for frugal innovations. This paper not only shows its applicability in the industry of small household appliances but gives the basis for its successful transfer to other industries.

The purpose of this study is to analyze door-panel alignment defects seen in built-in ovens manufactured in one household appliances company's plant. Alignment defects in oven door panel substantially affect aesthetics of the product which is an important aspect in driving customer preference and satisfaction. Therefore, this study aimed to increase the initial 3.1 sigma level of oven-manufacturing process to at least 4 sigma level by decreasing a particular door-panel alignment defect, which constituted 67.7 percent of the overall alignment defects.

The goals were achieved through a structured Six Sigma implementation with lean element by utilizing various Six Sigma tools such as workflow, Pareto-analysis, measurement system analyses, control-charts, process capability analysis, cause-and effect-diagram and hypotheses tests. A non–value-added step was also eliminated through the lean approach.

Through Six Sigma implementation, the initial 3.1 sigma process performance level has been increased to 4.4 sigma level leading to substantial decrease in alignment defects.

In the quality management literature, not many papers directly deal with aesthetics and appearance problems of the products especially in the household appliances industry. Moreover, hypothesis testing is not frequently used in Six Sigma implementations in the literature. In addition to limited usage of hypothesis testing, very few studies conducted a thorough measurement system analysis. Considering these gaps in the Six Sigma literature, this study fills an important gap in research by implementing a detailed Six Sigma study, enhanced with hypothesis testing and a thorough measurement system analysis, on the aesthetics and appearance of the product.

This study aims to examine the impact of socioeconomic factors on electricity usage and assess the feasibility of implementing a mini-grid system in Kasangazi, Malawi. The primary aim is to understand the community’s current and potential utilisation of electrical equipment.

A mixed-methods approach was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Information was gathered through structured questionnaires, and energy audits were conducted among 87 randomly selected households from 28 Kasangazi communities. Data analysis relied on descriptive statistics using IBM SPSS version 28.

The study indicates that every household in Kasangazi uses non-renewable energy sources: 60 households use disposable batteries for lighting, 20 for radios and all use firewood, freely sourced from local forests, for cooking and heating water. The study shows that firewood is the community’s preferred energy source, illustrating the challenges faced in the fight against deforestation. Most household income comes from farming, with smaller contributions from businesses, employment and family remittances. Access to higher education is scarce, with only one out of 349 family members receiving tertiary education. Despite the constraints of low education levels and income, there is a demand for larger electrical appliances such as stoves and refrigerators. This underscores the need for mini-grid solutions, even in less technologically advanced, agriculture-dependent communities.

This study underscores that in Sub-Saharan Africa, factors like household size, income and education levels do not significantly influence the electricity demand but should be taken as part of the fundamental human rights. Rural populations express a desire for electricity due to the convenience it offers, particularly for appliances like refrigerators and stoves. Mini-grids emerge as a viable alternative in regions where grid electricity provision is challenging. It is concluded from this paper that the issue of using renewable energy should not only be taken for environmental preservation but also to promote energy access, augmenting efforts in supplying electricity to the remotest parts of the country.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of countries has some of the highest electricity consumptions and carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the world. This poses a direct challenge to the GCC government’s ability to meet their CO₂ reduction targets. In this review paper the current household electricity consumption situation in the GCC is reviewed.

Three scenarios for reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are proposed and evaluated using strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) as well as the political, economic, social, technical, legal and environmental (PESTLE) frameworks.

The first scenario found that using solar Photovoltaic (PV) or hybrid solar PV and wind system to power household lighting could save significant amounts of energy, based on lighting making up between 8% to 30% of electricity consumption in GCC households. The second scenario considers replacement of conventional appliances with energy-efficient ones that use around 20% less energy. The third scenario looks at influencing consumer behavior towards sustainable energy consumption.

Pilot trials of these scenarios are recommended for a number of households. Then the results and feedback could be used to launch the schemes GCC-wide.

The proposed scenarios are designed to encourage responsible electricity consumption and production within households (SDG12).

All three proposals are found viable for policymakers to implement. However, to ensure successful implementation GCC Governments are recommended to review all the opportunities and challenges associated with these schemes as laid out in this paper.

This paper aims to address gaps in the sustainable technology literature by evaluating the demographics of energy efficient appliance consumption in Vietnam. Sustainable technologies can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address environmental problems such as air quality and climate change. Opportunity is the greatest in emerging markets, where population growth has triggered dramatic rises in electricity consumption. However, their adoption of energy efficient appliances has been slow and understanding why is limited.

Following a literature review, a questionnaire was designed to capture sustainable consumption attitudes and behaviours. In total, 682 interviews were conducted among Vietnamese electrical appliance consumers to investigate the influence of demographics on sustainable technology consumption.

While many respondents were aware of the sustainable benefits of energy efficient appliances, this did not generally translate into responsible purchase behaviour. Of the demographic variables, education had the strongest relationship with sustainability. Those with higher incomes and more children were also more likely to exhibit sustainable consumption attitudes and behaviours. Gender and age were weaker sustainability predictors.

This study is relevant to a wide range of sustainable technology contexts. The literature shows contrary findings regarding relationships between demographics and sustainable consumption, and the value of demographics to sustainable consumer segmentation and targeted behaviour change campaigns has been contested by some researchers. This research highlights education as the most significant demographic predictor of sustainable consumption and reveals the consistency of this finding with many other studies. The implications of this for promoting future sustainability are discussed.

Iran as an energy‐rich country faces many challenges in the optimal utilization of its vast resources. High rates of population and economic growth, a generous subsidies program, and poor resource management have contributed to rapidly growing energy consumption and high energy intensity over the past decades. The continuing trend of rising energy consumption will bring about new challenges as it will shrink oil export revenues, restraining economic activities. This calls for a study to explore alternative scenarios for the utilization of energy resources in Iran. The purpose of this paper is to model demand for energy in Iran and develop two business‐as‐usual and efficiency scenarios for the period 2005‐2030.

The authors use a techno‐economic or end‐use approach to model energy demand in Iran for different types of energy uses and energy carriers in all sectors of the economy and forecast it under two scenarios: business as usual (BAU) and efficiency.

Iran has a huge potential for energy savings. Specifically, under the efficiency scenario, Iran will be able to reduce its energy consumption 40 percent by 2030.The energy intensity can also be reduced by about 60 percent to a level lower than the world average today.

The paper presents a comprehensive study that models the Iranian energy demand in different sectors of the economy, using data at different aggregation levels and a techno‐economic end‐use approach to illuminate the future of energy demand under alternative scenarios.