energy saving in energy market reform the feed in tariffs option abstract the use of feed in tariffs fits is now widespread for renewable energy and under discussion for other low carbon electricity generation but not for energy efficiency there is a small literature on fits for electricity demand reduction but not energy efficiency more generally this paper considers the general application of fits on the demand side and sets out the economic arguments in the context of changing energy markets it then discusses the implications of some practical issues including the definitional problems arising from the difference between energy efficiency and demand reduction using experience from historical energy efficiency programmes it considers the public benefits payment methods and policy scope that need to be considered and how these might affect policy design it makes some provisional estimates of economically justified payments in the context of the proposed uk energy market reform it concludes that fits for energy saving might be a powerful tool for incentivising energy efficiency

residential energy use and conservation economics and demographics energy consumption in the residential sector offers an important opportunity for conserving resources however much of the current debate regarding energy efficiency in the housing market focuses on the physical and technical determinants of energy consumption neglecting the role of the economic behavior of resident households in this paper we analyze the extent to which the use of gas and electricity is determined by the technical specifications of the dwelling as compared to the demographic characteristics of the residents our analysis is based on a sample of more than 300 000 dutch homes and their occupants the results indicate that residential gas consumption is determined principally by structural dwelling characteristics such as the vintage building type and characteristics of the dwelling while electricity consumption varies more directly with household composition in particular income and family composition combining these results with projections on future economic and demographic trends we find that even absent price increases for residential energy the aging of the population and their increasing wealth will roughly offset improvements in the energy efficiency of the building stock resulting from policy interventions and natural revitalization

determinants and policy implications for household electricity saving behaviour evidence from beijing china this research sets out to explore the possibilities for further saving in household electricity consumption through a study of the residents willingness and behavioural characteristics in electricity saving as applied within a chinese context based on an extensive literature review the authors argue that economic benefits policy and social norms and past experience may have a positive correlation with household electricity saving behaviour while the discomfort caused by electricity saving activities may exert a negative effect on it through a sample of 816 randomly selected residents in beijing the propositions are examined using logit regression analysis the conclusions support the ideas concerning both the positive influence of economic benefits policy and social norms and past experience as they affect broader electricity saving behaviour and the negative influence of the discomfort caused by electricity saving activities finally some inferences are drawn and suggestions are offered for policy makers and further studies

anomalies in intertemporal choice evidence and an interpretation research on decision making under uncertainly has been strongly influenced by the documentation of numerous expected utility eu anomalies behaviors that violate the expected utility axioms the relative lack of progress on the closely related topic of intertemporal choice is partly due to the absence of an analogous set of discounted utility du anomalies we enumerate a set of du anomalies analogous to the eu anomalies and propose a model that accounts for the anomalies as well as other intertemporal choice phenomena incompatible with du we discuss implications for savings behavior estimation of discount rates and choice framing effects

energy tax credits and housing improvement this paper investigates whether federal and state tax credits allowed to households who make energy saving improvements to their residence lead to an increase in improvement activity a two period utility maximization model of household behaviour is used to determine the theoretical influence of tax credits energy prices and other factors on the optimal magnitude of conservation capital improvement regressions using various qualitative measures of conservation improvement as the dependent variable are estimated using household level energy consumption and improvement data consistent with evidence from earlier surveys the empirical results do not support the hypothesis that energy tax credits lead to more widespread or more extensive energy conservation improvement activity

does environmental concern change the tragedy of the commons factors affecting energy saving behaviors and electricity usage electricity consumption produces private goods such as heat for homes but fossil fuel consumption impacts the public goods of clean air and water while self interests can increase usage social interests such as global climate change can impact an individual s attitude toward energy consumption this paper examines the tragedy of the commons using household data and compares the impact of self and social interests in predicting electricity consumption using both stated and observed behavioral data the results show that self interests have a greater impact on energy saving behaviors and electricity use we extend the analysis to control for an individual s environmental concern and perceived behavioral impact finding similar results and supporting the notion that the tragedy of the commons occurs regardless of a person s perception or environmental concern these findings may explain why pro environmental attitudes do not necessarily lead to pro environmental behaviors and it contributes to our understanding of the motivating factors for energy savings and electricity use by examining both stated and observed behaviors policies aimed at electricity reduction may have a greater impact if they focus on private interests such as pricing rebates subsidies and taxes rather than social interests alone

where to place the saving obligation energy end users or suppliers abstract obligations to save energy differentiate among other features by obliged parties these are obligations on energy suppliers and energy end users supplier obligations have been introduced in north america europe and australia under supplier obligations energy suppliers have to comply with mandatory energy saving targets and thus they implement directly or via third parties energy efficiency projects on their clients premises or they decide to trade certified project savings if this option is envisaged by their obligation scheme in several emerging schemes such as the uk carbon reduction commitment crc energy efficiency scheme the tokyo emission trading scheme or the perform achieve and trade pat scheme in india the obligation to reduce energy consumption is placed on large end users directly and end users are allowed to trade emissions allowances or energy saving certificates the paper starts with presenting these two conceptually different ways for introducing energy saving obligations then it analyses advantages and disadvantages of end users obligations compared to suppliers obligations the preliminary conclusion of the paper is that supplier obligations seem to be well suited for the residential sector but end user saving obligations may offer advantages when it comes to the industrial and commercial sectors

energy saving in swedish households the relative importance of environmental attitudes the objectives for energy saving in the housing sector set by recent swedish energy and climate policies are quite demanding this article uses nation wide swedish survey data from 2004 to 2007 to explore the potential for achieving those targets earlier findings that socio economic characteristics such as age housing type and income are strongly linked to higher propensities to save on heating and hot water usage are confirmed by ordered logistic regression models however general environmental attitudes are also found to play a crucial role when assessing the relative importance of socioeconomic factors and environmental attitudes the effect on energy saving is generally greater for the former than the latter in addition important interaction effects are identified in relative terms the effect of environmental attitudes is clearly stronger among households in apartment blocks than among those in detached housing and stronger among households with higher income than among those with lower income we end by discussing the implications for the selection and targeting of policy measures to tap the energy savings potential in the population

consumer rationality and the status quo received microeconomic theory presumes rational consumers maximize utility over all commodity bundles recent analysis however suggests that a consumer s status quo may limit economic rationality bias consumer decisions and induce serious errors in survey based valuations of public and private goods using regression and choice theoretic frameworks we investigate the existence of status quo effects in the consumer valuation of a particular unpriced product the reliability of residential electrical service such valuations have become important in electric utility resource planning and rate making we find substantial status quo effects which must be addressed in welfare comparisons regarding electric service reliability

what s driving energy efficient appliance label awareness and purchase propensity the eu appliance energy consumption labeling scheme is a key component of efforts to increase the diffusion of energy efficient household appliances in this paper the determinants of consumer knowledge of the energy label for household appliances and the choice of class a energy efficient appliances are jointly estimated using data from a large survey of more than 20 000 german households the results for five major appliances suggest that lack of knowledge of the energy label can generate considerable bias in both estimates of rates of uptake of class a appliances and in estimates of the underlying determinants of choice of class a appliance simulations of the choice to purchase a class a appliance given knowledge of the labeling framework reveal that residence characteristics and in several cases regional electricity prices strongly increase the propensity to purchase a class a appliance but socio economic characteristics have surprisingly little impact on appliance energy class choice

regulation by prices quantities or both a review of instrument choice choosing appropriate policy instruments is an important part of successful regulation once objectives are agreed and suitable targets adopted policy makers can employ command and control regulation and or economic instruments and choose between fixing a price or a quantity this paper examines the relative advantages of price quantity and hybrid instruments according to their efficiency under uncertainty the trade off between credible commitment and flexibility implementation international considerations and political economy various illustrations of the theory are provided with two detailed applications to climate change and transport policy specifically congestion and safety pricing

not irrational but habitual the importance of behavioural lock in in energy consumption abstract a substantial body of literature has shown that our behaviour is often guided by habits the existence of habits not fully conscious forms of behaviour is important as it contradicts rational choice theory their presence thus calls for the setting of new instruments as they make it unlikely that consumers be capable of exercising control over their energy consumption in reaction to given incentives this is further increased in the evolutionary perspective where the current carbon based socio technical system constrains and shapes consumers choices through structural forces habits being potentially counterintentional they may explain the efficiency paradox in energy as well as the continued increase of energy consumption despite the rising environmental awareness among the population policies aiming at reducing energy consumption should thus specifically address the performance context of habits for instance targeting new residents has proven to be more effective given that their preceding habits have been disturbed the results of our empirical analysis confirm this idea by showing how a change of context makes people more receptive to a proposed measure our analysis of the role played by habits also suggests that individuals do not consider the need to change existing habits as an obstacle even though this is contradicted implicitly in the answers they provided to open questions this unconsciousness is one of the most delicate features of habits and it should thus be accounted for when designing measures given the other characteristics of habits the joint use of feedbacks and commitment strategies appears promising

exploring domestic energy saving the role of environmental concern and background variables abstract the main purpose of this paper is to investigate whether residents environmental concern has any effect on their energy saving curtailments and efficiency investments the novelty of the present work lies in the fact that it seeks to investigate this topic in a multi country setting exploiting data from nine oecd countries australia canada czech republic france italy south korea netherlands norway and sweden and also in that it employs a latent variable model which allows us to examine the conditions necessary for the results to be comparable across different countries novel in this paper is also the focus on the role of environmental concern as a factor of several curtailments and efficiency investments our results suggest that people with higher environmental concern are on average more likely to perform energy saving curtailments and also are more likely to have some energy efficiency retrofits installed in dwellings most of the socio economic and demographic variables have mixed effects on efficiency investments and curtailments however some interesting patterns emerged with respect to the age of respondents household income education and gender of respondents and also the size of household

energy saving in italy in the late 1990s which role for non monetary motivations abstract the paper studies the relationship between energy saving behaviour monetary drivers and non monetary motivations in italy in a period the end of the 1990s when the energy industry was not yet liberalized there were no energy saving incentive schemes and the environmental sensitivity and information were lower we consider as dependent variable the frequency with which individuals switch the light off when leaving a room as monetary drivers income and perceived energy costs while non monetary motives in our model are measured by proxies of pro environmental attitudes environmental information social pressure and pro social behaviours the analysis is based on probit and logit models estimated on a sample from the multipurpose household survey dataset conducted by the italian statistical office we find that individuals who were less concerned about environmental issues were also more attentive in energy saving behaviour suggesting together with results about income and perceived energy costs that monetary motivations were primary in driving this energy saving behaviour such findings are robust to the inclusion of variables accounting for pro social behaviours altruism by individuals who claim to be more concerned about broad environmental externalities may have adversely affected their propensity to optimize energy consumption

communications on energy household energy conservation abstract this study assesses the influence of attitudinal and socio economic factors on household energy conservation actions a household interview survey in regina saskatchewan found that respondents perceive an energy problem although no association with energy conservation actions was determined two attitudinal and five socio economic variables influence household energy conservation energy and monetary savings are available to households through energy conservation public awareness of household energy conservation through the media can reinforce existing energy conservation actions and encourage new actions

consumption smoothing and frequency of benefit payments of cash transfer programs we examine the extent of consumption smoothing between the receipt of benefits by households after the introduction of two non contributory pension programs in the state of yucatan mexico

rewarding energy savings rather than energy efficiency exploring the concept of a feed in tariff for energy savings abstract financial incentives are important for overcoming certain market barriers to improved energy efficiency and for the adoption of energy efficient technologies financial incentives are mainly focused on the introduction of specific technologies rather than behavioural change while the declared goal of financial support schemes very often is to save energy or reduce harmful emissions rather than to foster new technologies per se it is often encountered that such financial support for energy efficient technologies may not ensure real energy savings due to the rebound effect and various market barriers in the area of renewable energies it is common for financial support to be given to power producers for the verified production of renewable electricity in the form of a guaranteed financial incentive feed in tariff in the energy efficiency policy research little attention has been paid to the possible use of a feed in tariff in the form of a financial incentive based on the kwh saved by the end user this paper discusses the possible setup of a feed in tariff designed to reward energy savings

the devil is in the details household electricity saving behavior and the role of information abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyze swedish households willingness to increase their daily efforts to save electricity the analysis builds on a broad theoretical framework which embraces both economic and norm based motivations in explaining household behavior the paper pays particular attention to the role of information about the availability of different behavioral changes that can be undertaken at the household level the empirical results are based on a postal survey that was sent out to 1200 swedish households and the econometric analysis is carried out within a so called ordered probit framework our results indicate that costs environmental attitudes and social interactions are all important determinants of electricity saving activities within swedish households we tested the hypothesis that information about available savings measures that is presented in a more concrete and specific way is more likely to affect stated behavior than is more general information and the data collected support this notion the paper ends by discussing some implications of these results for the design of future informative policy measures in the energy efficiency field

estimating energy conservation patterns of greek households abstract this paper develops an empirical model to investigate the main determinants of household energy conservation patterns in greece employing cross section data in the empirical analysis household energy conserving choices models are employed using a discrete and a latent trait variable respectively as a dependent variable the results show that socio economic variables such as consumers income and family size are suitable to explain differences towards energy conservation preferences in addition the results suggest that electricity expenditures and age of the respondent are negatively associated with the number of energy conserving actions that a consumer is willing to adopt finally other variables such as environmental information feedback and consciousness of energy problems are characteristics of the energy saver consumer by evaluating consumer s decision making process with regards to energy conservation measures we are able to formulate and propose an effective energy conservation framework for greece an energy policy framework is among the main prerequisites not only to achieve sustainable development but also to maintain consumers quality of life

an econometric analysis of residential expenditures on energy conservation and renewable energy sources abstract economic theory suggests that residential expenditures on energy conservation and renewable energy sources will be determined by the ability of households to purchase conservation inputs their incentive to invest in conserving energy the energy efficiency of existing homes and miscellaneous factors such as climate and age of the home owner empirical analyses of energy related expenditures reported on individual income tax returns confirm the importance of household income energy price increases and climate conditions in determining energy conservation investments income tax credits are also found to have stimulated residential spending on conservation and renewable energy

do we punish high income criminals too heavily many critics believe that since high income criminals can afford to purchase better legal services they are less severely punished than poor criminals who commit equivalent crimes others are concerned that the penalties imposed on criminals are too small this paper shows that ignoring the effect conviction has on later earnings dramatically underestimates the total monetary penalty paid by those convicted and that the penalty structure is extremely progressive where evidence on the probability of conviction is available it shows that the highest income criminals face the highest expected penalties