IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v158y2026ics0140988326002070.html

Misperception and underinvestment in energy-saving technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Imamura, Yuya
  • Honda, Tomonori
  • Takeuchi, Kenji

Abstract

Optimizing energy consumption in the household sector can yield significant environmental benefits, although necessary investments are often hindered by consumer misperceptions about their effectiveness. This study examines how these misperceptions affect evaluations of energy-saving investments. Using a stated choice experiment, we investigate how individuals’ willingness to pay for demand-side resource control services is influenced by cognitive biases. We found that households with two or more members are willing to pay only 14.1% of the actual savings from the electricity bill for a 10% reduction in energy use. Further analysis indicates that the willingness-to-pay for energy savings among respondents with higher expectations regarding energy-saving behavior is roughly twice that of those with lower expectations. However, the negative impact of misperceptions can be mitigated by fostering a high level of trust in service providers. We consider two types of trust: trust in the service provider itself and trust in their handling of personal data. Both expectations and trust are measured using the Bayesian Truth Serum, which incentivizes honest responses. To address these cognitive biases, we recommend that service providers deliver accurate and comprehensible information on potential bill savings from optimizing home appliance usage.

Suggested Citation

  • Imamura, Yuya & Honda, Tomonori & Takeuchi, Kenji, 2026. "Misperception and underinvestment in energy-saving technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:158:y:2026:i:c:s0140988326002070
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988326002070
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109328?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:158:y:2026:i:c:s0140988326002070. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.