Households' willingness to pay for safeguarding security of natural gas supply in electricity generation

Security of energy supply is a major issue for all EU Member States due to Europe's increasing dependence on imported fossil-fuel sources and the continuous rise in energy demand. The latter is of particular importance in electricity sector given the continuously increasing use of gas for electricity generation. In order to properly tackle with the problem, concerted actions are required by the EU Member States in several levels, i.e. legislative, political, etc. Nevertheless, these actions will come at an additional cost paid by the society either through increased electricity bills or through public financing for energy security investments. Thus, such policies should be justified on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Towards this direction, it may be necessary to take into account non-market costs and benefits, i.e. the value that consumers place on interruptions avoided. In order to explore households' perceptions and willingness to pay for securing gas supply for electricity production, an empirical study was conducted by means of the contingent valuation method. The results indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium on their electricity bills in order to internalize the external costs of electricity production, in terms of energy security, which are caused from imported fuels.