exploring policy options for a transition to sustainable heating system diffusion using an agent based simulation change in home heating to more efficient and renewable systems is important for a sound climate policy the present paper aims to identify potential interventions for the uptake of wood pellet heating in norway using an agent based model abm the theoretically based empirically founded agent based simulation demonstrates that financial support i e a stable wood pellet price and technical development i e functional reliability improvement have to be established all at the same time for a successful wood pellet market to start furthermore a soft intervention through persuading households to use environmentally beneficial heating system is not a promising driver for wood pellet diffusion limitations and suggestions for future work are also discussed

assessment of public acceptance and willingness to pay for renewable energy sources in crete abstract the aim of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the citizens public acceptance and willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy sources res in crete for this purpose a contingent valuation study was conducted using a double bound dichotomous choice format to elicit people s wtp and factors affecting it residents of 1440 households all over crete were interviewed face to face major conclusions can be used as a basis for sustainable energy planning for policies and the formulation of awareness campaigns and for res investment programs and projects in order to prepare implementation conditions and enhance public acceptance of renewable energy investments and programmes mean wtp per household was found to be 16 33 to be paid quarterly as an additional charge on the electricity bill larger willingness to pay was reported by those with high family income and residence size those having a higher level of energy information and awareness concerning climatic change those who have invested in some energy saving measures and those who suffer from more electricity shortages than others

residential peak electricity demand response highlights of some behavioural issues electricity demand response refers to consumer actions that change the utility load profile in a way that reduces costs or improves grid security the focus of demand response has mainly been on the commercial and big industrial sectors because of the large demand reduction that they can offer to the utility grid operators utilities are showing increasing interest in residential demand response rdr rdr can be treated as an energy resource which can be assessed and commercially developed however there are still some issues that remain to be addressed for rdr to be successful these include price unresponsiveness of some residential consumers equity issues and high cost of the metering infrastructure the aim of this paper is to investigate and present some of the challenges in achieving effective voluntary demand reduction based on a review of residential demand response literature as well as the general residential energy use behaviour literature the authors propose the use of a hybrid engineering approach using social psychology and economic behaviour models to overcome these challenges and realize the benefits of supply security and cost management

turning green agent based modeling of the adoption of dynamic electricity tariffs abstract using an agent based modeling approach we study the temporal dynamics of consumer opinions regarding switching to dynamic electricity tariffs and the actual decisions to switch we assume that the decision to switch is based on the unanimity of past opinions the resulting model offers a hypothetical yet plausible explanation of why there is such a big discrepancy between consumer opinions as measured by market surveys and the actual participation in pilot programs and the adoption of dynamic tariffs we argue that due to the high indifference level in today s retail electricity markets customer opinions are very unstable and change frequently the conducted simulation study shows that reducing the indifference level can result in narrowing the intention behavior gap a similar effect can be achieved by decreasing the decision time that a consumer takes to make a decision

towards improved policy processes for promoting innovation in renewable electricity technologies in the uk this paper analyses recent current and potential future relations between policy processes and substantive outcomes in uk low carbon innovation policy focussing on policies relating to renewable electricity generation technologies it examines the development of policy processes relating to the adoption and implementation of the renewables obligation and how these may affect the current and likely future success of the obligation in promoting low carbon innovation it examines the new policy and institutional processes put in place in the 2003 energy white paper and argues that these are unlikely to provide the strategic long term framework needed to realise the ambitious goals for uk energy policy set out in the white paper finally it outlines some suggestions for further development of policy processes to facilitate improved delivery of these goals based on guiding principles for sustainable innovation policy processes developed by the authors and their colleagues

difficulty is critical the importance of social factors in modeling diffusion of green products and practices abstract despite the very positive as measured by market surveys attitude towards eco innovations and sustainability in general the actual market penetration of green products and practices generally falls behind the expectations in this paper we argue that considering difficulty of engagement as used in the campbell paradigm is of critical importance when modeling diffusion of eco innovations such a notion of difficulty possesses three desired properties i parsimony it is represented by a single value ii interpretability it can be regarded as an estimator of the otherwise complex notion of behavioral cost and iii applicability it can be easily measured through market surveys in an extensive simulation and analytical study involving empirically measured difficulty and an agent based model spanned on different social network structures we show that innovation adoption may exhibit abrupt changes in market penetration as a result of even small changes in difficulty the latter may be of particular interest to policy makers who have to make strategic decisions when introducing socially but not necessarily individually desired products and practices like dynamic or green electricity tariffs

peer effects in the diffusion of solar photovoltaic panels social interaction peer effects are recognized as a potentially important factor in the diffusion of new products in the case of environmentally friendly goods or technologies both marketers and policy makers are interested in the presence of causal peer effects as social spillovers can be used to expedite adoption we provide a methodology for the simple straightforward identification of peer effects with sufficiently rich data avoiding the biases that occur with traditional fixed effects estimation when using the past installed base of consumers in the reference group we study the diffusion of solar photovoltaic panels in california and find that at the average number of owner occupied homes in a zip code an additional installation increases the probability of an adoption in the zip code by 0 78 percentage points our results provide valuable guidance to marketers designing strategies to increase referrals and reduce customer acquisition costs they also provide insights into the diffusion process of environmentally friendly technologies

a new product growth for model consumer durables this article originally appeared in management science january 1969 volume 15 number 5 pp 215 227 published by the institute of management sciences a growth model for the timing of initial purchase of new products is developed and tested empirically against data for eleven consumer durables the basic assumption of the model is that the timing of a consumer s initial purchase is related to the number of previous buyers a behavioral rationale for the model is offered in terms of innovative and imitative behavior the model yields good predictions of the sales peak and the timing of the peak when applied to historical data a long range forecast is developed for the sales of color television sets

investment inefficiency and the adoption of eco innovations the case of household energy efficiency technologies abstract this paper examines the factors determining household adoption of energy efficiency eco innovations we do so by testing hypotheses grounded in diffusion and finance theory and the literature on the barriers to energy efficiency using two large surveys of uk households we explore the adoption of nine technologies our results indicate investment inefficiency amongst household adopters occurs for two reasons first contrary to notions of rational choice we find a negative relationship between the investment return of technologies and their level of diffusion second we show adopters of these technologies display characteristics broadly consistent with diffusion theory contradicting the prediction of finance theory that investment return not individual characteristics should drive adoption we also find that policy has played a role in inducing the diffusion of these technologies and that tenure and spill over effects are important in adoption finally adoption is motivated more by a desire to save money than by environmental concern we conclude by giving examples of how our research can lead to better policy timing and targeting

household energy use applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision making and behaviour household energy conservation has emerged as a major challenge and opportunity for researchers practitioners and policymakers consumers also seem to be gaining greater awareness of the value and need for sustainable energy practices particularly amid growing public concerns over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change yet even with adequate knowledge of how to save energy and a professed desire to do so many consumers still fail to take noticeable steps towards energy efficiency and conservation there is often a sizeable discrepancy between peoples self reported knowledge values attitudes and intentions and their observable behaviour examples include the well known knowledge action gap and value action gap but neither is household energy consumption driven primarily by financial incentives and the rational pursuit of material interests in fact people sometimes respond in unexpected and undesirable ways to rewards and sanctions intended to shift consumers cost benefit calculus in favour of sustainable behaviours why is this so why is household energy consumption and conservation difficult to predict from either core values or material interests by drawing on critical insights from behavioural economics and psychology we illuminate the key cognitive biases and motivational factors that may explain why energy related behaviour so often fails to align with either the personal values or material interests of consumers understanding these psychological phenomena can make household and community responses to public policy interventions less surprising and in parallel can help us design more cost effective and mass scalable behavioural solutions to encourage renewable and sustainable energy use among consumers

will domestic consumers take up the renewable heat incentive an analysis of the barriers to heat pump adoption using agent based modelling abstract the uk government introduced the tariff based domestic renewable heat incentive rhi in april 2014 to encourage installation of renewable heat technologies as a key component of its carbon reduction policy of these heat pumps are considered to be the most promising for widespread adoption and as such are the subject of this paper pilot studies prior to introduction of the policy identified non financial barriers to uptake such as the hassle factor involved and initial figures indeed indicate that uptake is lower than expected we analyse these non financial barriers using an agent based model and conclude that there is a tipping point beyond which adoption is likely to fall very sharply we suggest that the rhi s complex and stringent compliance requirements for home inspections and heat emitter performance may well have driven adoption past this point and that further intervention may be required if the key aims of the rhi are to be achieved

review of dynamic pricing programs in the u s and europe status quo and policy recommendations with the development of demand response dr technologies and increasing electricity demand dynamic pricing has been a popular topic in many countries this paper evaluates various dynamic pricing programs in the u s and europe and provides insights into various aspects including risks and rewards enabling technologies lower income groups and customer types surrounding programs such as time of use tou critical peak pricing cpp peak time rebates ptr and real time pricing rtp we conclude this paper with three main findings 1 policy coordination in promoting dynamic pricing programs between federal and state regulatory agencies is very critical 2 customer engagement is very important and can be enhanced via more accessible educational programs and policy adjustments and 3 more investment in related r d is required to construct a commonly accepted methodology for measuring the effectiveness of dynamic pricing programs

the rebound effect microeconomic definitions limitations and extensions abstract the rebound effect results in part from an increased consumption of energy services following an improvement in the technical efficiency of delivering those services this increased consumption offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved if the rebound effect is sufficiently large it may undermine the rationale for policy measures to encourage energy efficiency the nature and magnitude of the rebound effect is the focus of long running dispute with energy economics this paper brings together previous theoretical work to provide a rigorous definition of the rebound effect to clarify key conceptual issues and to highlight the potential consequences of various assumptions for empirical estimates of the effect the focus is on the direct rebound effect for a single energy service indirect and economy wide rebound effects are not discussed beginning with khazzoom s original definition of the rebound effect we expose the limitations of three simplifying assumptions on which this definition is based first we argue that capital costs form an important part of the total cost of providing energy services and that empirical studies that estimate rebound effects from variations in energy prices are prone to bias second we argue that energy efficiency should be treated as an endogenous variable and that empirical estimates of the rebound effect may need to apply a simultaneous equation model to capture the joint determination of key variables third we explore the implications of the opportunity costs of time in the production of energy services and highlight the consequences for energy use of improved time efficiency the influence of time costs on the rebound effect and the existence of a parallel rebound effect with respect to time each of these considerations serves to highlight the difficulties in obtaining reliable estimates of the rebound effect and the different factors that need to be controlled for we discuss the implications of these findings for econometric studies and argue that several existing studies may overestimate the magnitude of the effect

an empirical analysis of latitude of price acceptance in consumer package goods scanner panel data analyses for sweetened and unsweetened drink categories with four brands in each support the presence of a region of price insensitivity around a reference price the analyses also suggest that consumers with higher average reference price have a wider latitude of price acceptance consumers with a higher frequency of purchase i e shorter average interpurchase time interval are found to have a narrower latitude of price acceptance because they are more aware of the range of price distributions finally consumers with a higher average brand loyalty have a wider latitude of price acceptance demonstrating greater tolerance of price fluctuations

the inclusion of social aspects in power planning a b s t r a c t this paper overviews previous research addressing the inclusion of the social dimension of sustainable development on power systems planning consequences of the recent energy policies and strategies are already being felt in developed countries power systems with the integration of rising quotas in renewable energy technologies however while the tools that aid decision making on power planning show that economic and environmental issues are easily quantifiable and thus modeled social concerns have been addressed in a less extensive and more subjective way implying in most cases expert participation on multi criteria decision aid techniques a survey of recent papers providing public perceptions on electricity generation technologies and projects is presented these papers were chosen and reviewed in order to present a representative array of methodologies that are used to assess social acceptance of technologies according to some of the reviewed papers this issue is suggested to be fundamental to increase project success as a conclusion stands the fact that further discussion is still needed in order to achieve solid agreement among experts over what are the positive and the negative drivers to social sustainability otherwise models will not be able to translate reality and improve it under this point of view

direct rebound effect on urban residential electricity use an empirical study in china abstract though improving energy efficiency is an important approach to decrease the energy consumption the rebound effect caused by technology progress negatively affects the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies this paper empirically investigates direct rebound effect of urban residential electricity use in china using china s 30 provincial government panel data from1996 to 2010 we build a co integration equation and a panel error correction model to analyze the direct rebound effect the results indicate that an obvious rebound effect in the chinese urban residential electricity consumption does exist specifically the long term rebound effect is 0 74 while the short term rebound effect is 0 72 therefore the rebound effect significantly impairs functions of energy efficiency policies for this reason chinese government should take the rebound effect into consideration when formulating energy policies

epistemic conditions for equilibrium in beliefs without independence aumann and brandenburger econometrica63 1995 1161 1180 provide sufficient conditions on the knowledge of the players in a game for their beliefs to constitute a nash equilibrium they assume among other things mutual knowledge of rationality by rationality of a player it is meant that the action chosen by him maximizes his expected utility given his beliefs there is however no need to restrict the notion of rationality to expected utility maximization this paper shows that their result can be generalized to the case where players preferences over uncertain outcomes belong to a large class of non expected utility preferences journal of economic literatureclassification numbers c72 d81

renewable energy technology diffusion an analysis of photovoltaic system support schemes in medellin colombia abstract colombia s electricity mix is dominated by hydropower which constitutes over 65 percent of the installed capacity the country has important potential for introducing solar photovoltaic sources into its electricity generation mix given its high average annual insolation however there is a lack of incentives and support schemes for alternative renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes the diffusion of a photovoltaic system in colombia with a focus on medellin colombia s second largest city a diffusion model is constructed based on the classic bass diffusion theory where the adoption rate is a function of awareness raising campaigning and social interaction the model incorporates both subsidy and feed in tariff policies policy implementation scenarios and the effects of policy mixes are analyzed results show that a 50 percent subsidy for investment together with a usd 0 30 kwh feed in tariff rate jointly provide the highest marginal increase in diffusion rate however given the cheapness of the country s current hydroelectric resources photovoltaic system diffusion might remain a challenge for both the government and private sectors for the foreseeable future

reference effects of price and promotion on brand choice behavior when consumers are exposed to pricing and promotional activity by frequently purchased packaged goods they may develop expectations that are used as points of reference in evaluating future activi

household level innovation diffusion model of photo voltaic pv solar cells from stated preference data we focus on predicting the adoption time probabilities of photo voltaic solar panels by households using discrete choice experiments and an innovation diffusion model the primary objective of this research is cohesively mapping the theory of disruptive innovation into diffusion of innovations to aid policy makers by linking two critical uncertainties of new technology 1 whether households prefer the new attributes of the new technology and how these preferences vary by market segments and 2 when are they going to adopt if at all our study uses recent developments of discrete choice experiments and establishes a causal link between the attributes of the technology attitudinal constructs and socio demographics and adoption time probabilities using the bass diffusion model the data was collected from ontario a province of canada the innovation diffusion model allows us to compute the cumulative probability of adoption over time per household technology awareness and energy cost saving have a significant effect on the adoption probability reinforcing the need for effective education these findings also suggest that campaigns should explain more about investment criteria feed in tariffs and environmental attributes this study findings call for a need to use seeding strategies to accelerate exogenous word of mouth wom for this new technology

correlates of price acceptability the cognitive tradeoff between price and product quality is used as a basis for hypothesizing interrelationships between two individual difference variables and two price related responses results of a correlational study support the hypothesis of an inverse relationship between price consciousness and product involvement and the hypotheses that price consciousness and product involvement have opposite implications for several price related constructs results also indicate a positive relationship between price acceptability level and the width of the latitude of price acceptance

the effect of plausible and exaggerated reference prices on consumer perceptions and price search this article examines whether advertisers regular price claims affect consumer perceptions and price search behavior experiments involving simulated shopping via personal computers indicate that compared to an ad with no reference price an ad with a plausible reference price raised subjects estimates of the advertiser s regular price and the perceived offer value an exaggerated reference price had generally the same positive effects on perception as a plausible reference price even for the more skeptical subjects further when subjects were presented with an advertised sale price above the lowest expected price the exaggerated reference price increased the percentage of subjects who purchased the product from the advertiser without checking other stores prices

uk innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies drivers barriers and systems failures abstract a better understanding of the systemic processes by which innovation occurs is useful both conceptually and to inform policy making in support of innovation in more sustainable technologies this paper analyses current innovation systems in the uk for a range of new and renewable energy technologies and generates policy recommendations for improving the effectiveness of these innovation systems although incentives are in place in the uk to encourage innovation in these technologies system failures or gaps are identified in moving technologies along the innovation chain preventing their successful commercialisation sustained investment will be needed for these technologies to achieve their potential it is argued that a stable and consistent policy framework is required to help create the conditions for this in particular such a framework should be aimed at improving risk reward ratios for demonstration and pre commercial stage technologies this would enhance positive expectations stimulate learning effects leading to cost reductions and increase the likelihood of successful commercialisation