Conference Agenda

Against the background of a transition to a decentralized and integrated energy system with an increasing share of renewables, we studied the impact of providing information about the electricity mix on the electricity demand response. We implemented a monetarily incentivized lab experiment. Participants could solve a real-effort task with or without the help of an additional electricity-demanding device. Using the device significantly positively impacted the participants' earnings. We used a between-subject design with four treatments that differed in the information provided about the electricity associated with using the additional device. In BASE, we informed the participants that using the device would cause additional electricity consumption. In GREEN and BROWN, we gave the same information as in BASE plus the information that the electricity mix was predominantly based on renewable (GREEN) or non-renewable sources (BROWN) at the time of the experiment. In our fourth treatment, GREEN BUT INFO, we gave the same information as in GREEN, but also highlighted that each unit of electricity additionally demanded would usually stem from non-renewable sources. Our results show a significant impact of our treatment intervention. Participants in GREEN demanded significantly more electricity compared to those in BASE, BROWN, and GREEN BUT INFO. These results highlight a rebound effect on electricity demand response due to the information describing a predominantly green electricity mix. Our findings are relevant given an increasing demand for electricity based on renewable sources due to ambitious climate goals and electrification processes in in the industrial, heating, and mobility sectors.

Numerous field experiments have proven that various behavioral interventions encourage households to decrease their energy use. However, with increasing numbers of prosumers who not only consume but also generate their own electricity and sell or store the surplus on the grid, it is unclear whether the same behavioral interventions are effective for this type of household. We conduct a country-wide randomized control trial with over 900 households equipped with smart meters, to test behavioral interventions that encourage prosumers both to reduce electricity use during critical peak hours and to reduce total electricity use. We cooperate with a national distribution company in Lithuania that provides feedback on household electricity use via a mobile application we have developed that delivers real-time responses to our behavioral interventions. We investigate two types of incentives—monetary information in the form of notifications about surge prices in the wholesale market and non-monetary informational incentives in the form of social comparisons—separately and together. We find that both types of interventions are effective in reducing average net electricity use and increasing average net electricity production during surge price periods. We find that the combination of critical peak price notifications and social comparison information exhibits the highest effectiveness in conservation behavior.

This study empirically investigates factors that alternatively enable or impede the scaling-up of citizen investments in renewable energy cooperatives (RECs). These factors include key features of a Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP), namely co-investments by firms, a capital-based voting rule, and the delegation of capital-based voting rights by citizen investors to a trustee. Analyzing data from a survey of 1022 adults in France through a discrete choice experiment (DCE) and a contingent valuation experiment (CVE) on stated investments in RECs, we find that participants value the opportunity to delegate their voting rights to a trustee but dislike the capital-based voting rule and co-investments by firms. While a capital-based voting rule weakens the stated propensity to invest, it increases the invested amount for participants who are willing to invest some amount. Higher rates of return and higher shares of self-consumption of electricity spur stated investments. These findings offer insights that can inform the transformation of business models to facilitate the scaling-up of RECs. In particular, unless a CSOP generates higher rates of return, it appears to face a trade-off between lower citizen participation rates and the leveraging of higher investment amounts from firms, municipalities, and potentially also citizens.

The expansion of renewable resources critically hinges on the households investing in solar panels (PV). A major barrier to such investment, liquidity constrains, may be overcome by a new business model: the leasing of solar panels. We cooperate with the largest PV leasing provider in Germany and study its potential of being a game changer to solar adoption. Specifically, we compare the characteristics and economic preferences of PV adopters in the leasing-model, PV adopters in a classic `buy-model' and homeowners without solar panels, utilizing data from three incentivized survey waves. We find that PV leasing attracts a new customer segment with fewer profitability concerns and a higher altruism, but crowds out customers with a large aversion against risks. Such finding is consistent with the characteristics attributed to early adopters in the diffusion of innovations.