Conference Agenda

Rooftop solar photovoltaic mandates are becoming a popular policy across Europe and the United States. In this paper we leverage the frontrunner experience of California to examine their economics. First, we evaluate the private payoffs of solar adoption for residential new construction. To do so, we assemble a rich dataset of new construction building projects and parameterize an engineering model to provide estimates of private payoffs across our sample. Second, we evaluate the hypothesis of what we call a “solar gap” by comparing the cost-effectiveness estimates from the engineering model to observed builder decisions, evaluating explanations for non-adoption. We find substantial variation in the cost-effectiveness of solar across building locations and characteristics, though the estimated private payoffs are generally positive across a robust variety of model parameterizations and financial assumptions. We observe that the majority of buildings in our data do not adopt solar, even after the implementation of mandates and despite engineering estimates suggesting opportunities for positive payoffs. Lastly, we estimate the effectiveness of both San Francisco’s city-wide solar mandate and California’s statewide mandate. Across a variety of empirical approaches, we find mixed results for the mandate in San Francisco, whereas the statewide mandate appears as more effective. We discuss compliance accordingly.

Wind power is a central element for climate change mitigation. However, local opposition jeopardizes its diffusion. The main argument is that wind power displaces traditional sectors and population without providing any local benefits. I test these hypotheses for a pioneer (wind deployment since the early 2000') but worst-case region (due to lack of local participation in the wind development process and foreign ownership of wind capacity). Using a difference-in-difference framework with municipal data of Galicia (Northwest Spain) for the period 1996-2019, I find that wind power increases local disposable income (high confidence) without affecting other sectors (low confidence). Wind power has not reversed the negative population trend in rural municipalities.

Fighting climate change requires international cooperation, widespread adoption of renewable energy (RE) and public support for the energy transition. Existing narratives on how to address climate change showcase contrasting stories on cooperation versus competition with other nations. This conceptually links to moral universalism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust towards strangers as towards in-group members, such as fellow citizens.

Our pre-registered information provision experiment with around 4,000 representative households from Germany and Spain provides the first causal evidence on the role of narratives for promoting policy support for climate mitigation. Bridging the literature on economic narratives, moral universalism, and the role of co-benefits for location-specific policy preferences, we randomly provide respondents with one out of four energy transition narratives and measure their relative support for foreign vs. domestic RE policies. Our 2x2 factorial design manipulates the location (own country vs. developing country) (i) where RE investments are required and (ii) where co-benefits resulting from the investment will occur. Additionally, we test whether moral universalism predicts energy transition policy preferences. Our findings suggest that economic narratives can drive public support for the energy transition. Beyond simply informing about climate change mitigation, communications that causally link public investment in RE in developing countries with co-benefits for the giving country (e.g. energy security) increase support for foreign RE policy the most. Underpinning the moral universalism literature, our analysis implies that, on average, universalist individuals display stronger support of foreign investment in RE.

Addressing renewable energy intermittency while meeting net zero emissions targets requires achieving flexibility in electricity demand. In a randomized control trial, we offer urban Indian households simple Wi-Fi-enabled smart switches that control an appliance. We trigger automated switch-off events rewarding participants per unit of energy they avoid consuming during the event that is the power they implicitly generated by not consuming. Using data from over 1,000 users, we find that switch-off events lead to a 60% reduction in appliance-level electricity usage and an 8.5% reduction in household-level electricity use during the event, with the load reduction effect being higher in hours that experience peak electricity demand. A comparison of household and device-level electricity consumption measurements indicates no evidence of leakage, where users might shift their electricity usage to other appliances not linked to the smart device. We find no evidence of load shifting effects on average implying that switch-off events reduce total consumption. Using new estimates of marginal emission factors as well as high-resolution generation cost data, we find that optimally timed and automated switch-offs could lead to meaningful emission reductions at low or even negative cost.