Powershift – A deepdive into the Low Income Energy Efficiency Program (LIEEP)

Working together with Swinburne University, this research reviews the program elements and outcomes from the Low Income Energy Efficiency Program (LIEEP). As a competitive merit-based grant program, LIEEP was established by the Commonwealth Government to provide grants to consortia of government, business and community organisations to trial innovative approaches to improve the energy efficiency of low income households and enable them to better manage their energy use. Twenty projects were conducted using a variety of initiatives across Australia, with their results published on the Department of the Environment and Energy website.

Using both content analysis and descriptive statistics to analyse the LIEEP reports, this research sought to identify the key factors that influenced low-income consumers to change their behaviour. Investigations were conducted on the individual project reports and supplemented by obtaining informal feedback, through the broader GEER network, and a range of secondary sources (e.g., CSIRO meta-analysis on LIEEP). The outcome of this work is to develop a consumer segmentation framework based on behavioural traits and common consumer needs to recommend future initiatives to assist the broader group of low-income consumers. This project will inform energy stakeholders about the relative value of the LIEEP projects and the initiatives trialled, and form the basis for future engagement of low-income consumers.