Conference Agenda

Household retrofit decisions are shaped by economic constraints and behavioural frictions. Using a pre-registered discrete choice experiment with a nationally representative sample of 2,200 Dutch households, we (1) estimate willingness to pay for six key attributes of energy retrofit programmes—upfront cost, municipal energy advisory services, CO₂ savings, payback time, comfort and disruptiveness—and (2) examine how four behavioural mechanisms—risk aversion, loss aversion, status quo bias and present bias—shape preferences over these attributes. We find that Dutch households are willing to pay a premium for improved comfort (ca. €4,800), enhanced municipal energy advisory services (ca. €2,100), and higher CO₂ savings (ca. €2,600). By contrast, they require substantial compensation for long payback times (ca. €7,500) and more disruptive retrofit works (ca. €1,100). These preferences are significantly moderated by individual behavioural biases: risk aversion and present bias are associated with lower willingness to pay for higher upfront costs, loss aversion is associated with stronger aversion to longer payback times, and status quo bias is associated with a stronger preference for municipal energy advisory services. Our findings underscore the importance of designing short-term, low-hassle retrofit offers that combine low-risk financial support with credible guarantees and low-disruption delivery models to accelerate the residential energy transition.