How Can Consumers Use Electricity More Efficiently? Exploring the Role of Information
Event details
| Date | 27.11.2013 |
| Hour | 16:00 › 17:30 |
| Speaker | Kathrin Degen (work with Lorenz Götte & Rafael Lalive), University of Lausanne |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
This paper investigates the role of information for the consumption of electricity. The analysis uses data from a large scale randomized field experiment with over 5’000 households in the city of Zurich to analyze the electricity saving potentials of different types of information. We consider three different types of information: (i) information about the own electricity consumption using smart metering technology, (ii) information about the own households’ electricity saving potential through expert advice, and (iii) social information about the own and a partner households’ electricity consumption. The electricity data is linked to a number of personal characteristics through a series of surveys before, during, and after the study period. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we estimate that the detailed and continuous feedback using smart metering technology reduces electricity consumption by around 0.2 to 0.3 kWh per day, or 3 to 5 % of daily electricity consumption. Effects are detected immediately after installation of the smart meter displays and persist over the whole study period. Social information tends to reduce electricity consumption as long as feedback is given at a monthly frequency, but effects fade out when feedback frequency drops from once per month to once per quarter. Finally, although expert advice improves the household’s knowledge about electricity savings potentials somewhat, the improved knowledge does not translate into reductions of electricity consumption. The findings indicate that one-shot or infrequent information does not significantly reduce electricity consumption, but that information reduces electricity consumption when feedback is detailed and frequent.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- Prof. Philippe Thalmann, EPFL/ENAC/REME
Bio: Philippe Thalmann was born in Lausanne in 1963. He graduated in Economics from the University of Lausanne in 1984, where he earned a postgraduate diploma in Economics in 1986. Mr. Thalmann entered the doctoral program in Economics of Harvard University (Cambridge, U.S.A.) in 1986, which he completed with a Ph.D. in 1990. His dissertation is entitled: "Essays in the Economics of Government Revenues and Spending". Returning to Switzerland, he was hired as an assistant professor first at the University of Geneva (teachings in Public Economics), then at the University of Lausanne (teachings in Econometrics and Introductory Economics). Since 1994, Mr. Thalmann is associate professor of Economics as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne.