IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v107y2017icp225-233.html

Persistence of the effects of providing feedback alongside smart metering devices on household electricity demand

Author

Listed:
  • Schleich, Joachim
  • Faure, Corinne
  • Klobasa, Marian

Abstract

Using large-sample high temporal resolution data from a smart metering field trial, we econometrically estimate the effects of providing feedback in addition to smart metering devices. We compare consumption levels and patterns between a pilot group that received feedback in addition to smart metering devices and a control group with only smart metering devices. We investigate, in particular, the persistence of the effects and whether the effects differ between periods of high and low household occupancy, i.e. between morning and evening periods, and between weekdays and weekend days. The findings show that feedback is effective, leading to about 5% electricity consumption reduction that is persistent over an eleven month period. Furthermore, our results show that this reduction affects both low and high occupancy periods, suggesting that feedback is associated with rather permanent changes in habitual behavior and/or investments in energy-efficient technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Schleich, Joachim & Faure, Corinne & Klobasa, Marian, 2017. "Persistence of the effects of providing feedback alongside smart metering devices on household electricity demand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 225-233.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:107:y:2017:i:c:p:225-233
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.05.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517302793
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.05.002?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:2010v31-03-a06 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Torriti, Jacopo, 2012. "Demand Side Management for the European Supergrid: Occupancy variances of European single-person households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 199-206.
    3. Faruqui, Ahmad & Harris, Dan & Hledik, Ryan, 2010. "Unlocking the [euro]53 billion savings from smart meters in the EU: How increasing the adoption of dynamic tariffs could make or break the EU's smart grid investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6222-6231, October.
    4. Buchanan, Kathryn & Russo, Riccardo & Anderson, Ben, 2015. "The question of energy reduction: The problem(s) with feedback," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 89-96.
    5. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769, December.
    6. Delmas, Magali A. & Fischlein, Miriam & Asensio, Omar I., 2013. "Information strategies and energy conservation behavior: A meta-analysis of experimental studies from 1975 to 2012," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 729-739.
    7. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    8. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    9. repec:aen:journl:ej34-1-04 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Gans, Will & Alberini, Anna & Longo, Alberto, 2013. "Smart meter devices and the effect of feedback on residential electricity consumption: Evidence from a natural experiment in Northern Ireland," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 729-743.
    11. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    12. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    13. Schleich, Joachim & Klobasa, Marian & Gölz, Sebastian & Brunner, Marc, 2013. "Effects of feedback on residential electricity demand—Findings from a field trial in Austria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1097-1106.
    14. repec:aen:journl:2004v25-01-a01 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2011. "Multivariate Matching Methods That Are Monotonic Imbalance Bounding," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(493), pages 345-361.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schleich, Joachim & Alsheimer, Sven, 2024. "The relationship between willingness to pay and carbon footprint knowledge: Are individuals willing to pay more to offset their carbon footprint if they learn about its size and distance to the 1.5 °C target?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    2. Asmare, Fissha & Jaraitė, Jūratė & Kažukauskas, Andrius, 2021. "The effect of descriptive information provision on electricity consumption: Experimental evidence from Lithuania," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    3. Tarun M. Khanna & Diana Danilenko & Qianyi Wang & Luke A. Smith & Bhumika T. V. & Aditya Narayan Rai & Jorge Sánchez Canales & Tim Repke & Max Callaghan & Mark Andor & Julian H. Elliott & Jan C. Minx, 2025. "Behavioral, Information, and Monetary Interventions to Reduce Energy Consumption in Households: A Living Systematic Review and Network Meta‐Analysis," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(4), December.
    4. Schleich, Joachim & Klobasa, Marian & Gölz, Sebastian & Brunner, Marc, 2013. "Effects of feedback on residential electricity demand—Findings from a field trial in Austria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1097-1106.
    5. Buckley, Penelope, 2020. "Prices, information and nudges for residential electricity conservation: A meta-analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    6. Giraudet, Louis-Gaëtan, 2020. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to energy savings in the building sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Ruokamo, Enni & Meriläinen, Teemu & Karhinen, Santtu & Räihä, Jouni & Suur-Uski, Päivi & Timonen, Leila & Svento, Rauli, 2022. "The effect of information nudges on energy saving: Observations from a randomized field experiment in Finland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    8. Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, 2018. "Energy efficiency as a credence good: A review of informational barriers to building energy savings," Working Papers 2018.07, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    9. Iwafune, Yumiko & Mori, Yuko & Kawai, Toshiaki & Yagita, Yoshie, 2017. "Energy-saving effect of automatic home energy report utilizing home energy management system data in Japan," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 382-392.
    10. Weber, Sylvain & Puddu, Stefano & Pacheco, Diana, 2017. "Move it! How an electric contest motivates households to shift their load profile," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 255-270.
    11. Meub, Lukas & Runst, Petrik & von der Leyen, Kaja, 2019. "Can APPealing and more informative bills "nudge" individuals into conserving electricity?," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 372, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics, revised 2019.
    12. Valentin Favre-Bulle & Sylvain Weber, 2026. "Financial and Non-Financial Incentives, and the Crowding-Out Effect: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Residential Electricity Consumption in Switzerland," IRENE Working Papers 26-04, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    13. Gans, Will & Alberini, Anna & Longo, Alberto, 2013. "Smart meter devices and the effect of feedback on residential electricity consumption: Evidence from a natural experiment in Northern Ireland," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 729-743.
    14. Andor, Mark A. & Fels, Katja M., 2018. "Behavioral Economics and Energy Conservation – A Systematic Review of Non-price Interventions and Their Causal Effects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 178-210.
    15. Goette, Lorenz & Tiefenbeck, Verena & Degen, Kathrin & Fleisch, Elgar & Tasic, Vojkan & Lalive, Rafael & Staake, Thorsten, 2016. "Overcoming Salience Bias: How Real-Time Feedback Fosters Resource Conservation," CEPR Discussion Papers 11480, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    16. Kim, Jin Han & Kaemingk, Michael, 2021. "Persisting effects of social norm feedback letters in reducing household electricity usage in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe: A randomized controlled trial," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 153-161.
    17. Rinne, Sonja, 2018. "Radioinactive: Are nuclear power plant outages in France contagious to the German electricity price?," CIW Discussion Papers 3/2018, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    18. Tonke, Sebastian, 2020. "Imperfect Procedural Knowledge: Evidence from a Field Experiment to Encourage Water Conservation," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224536, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Schleich, Joachim & Alsheimer, Sven, 2022. "How much are individuals willing to pay to offset their carbon footprint? The role of information disclosure and social norms," Working Papers "Sustainability and Innovation" S10/2022, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    20. Batalla-Bejerano, Joan & Trujillo-Baute, Elisa & Villa-Arrieta, Manuel, 2020. "Smart meters and consumer behaviour: Insights from the empirical literature," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    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:enepol:v:107:y:2017:i:c:p:225-233. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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/enpol .

    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.