IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v73y2021ics0957178721001478.html

Heterogeneity in own-price residential customer demand elasticities for electricity under time-of-use rates: Evidence from a randomized-control trial in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Cappers, Peter A.
  • Todd-Blick, Annika

Abstract

Regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders in several states have raised concerns about the price elasticity of residential customers’ electricity demand, especially as related to different customer subpopulations, management of critical end-uses, and enrollment approaches. This analysis sought to quantify the diversity of residential customer price elasticity in a time-of-use rate across these different dimensions using data generated from a utility pricing experiment. Customers were found to be more elastic during the peak period of critical peak days, who were predicted to own and use air conditioning, and who volunteered for time-of-use (TOU) rates (but those defaulted on were 25% as elastic).

Suggested Citation

  • Cappers, Peter A. & Todd-Blick, Annika, 2021. "Heterogeneity in own-price residential customer demand elasticities for electricity under time-of-use rates: Evidence from a randomized-control trial in the United States," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:73:y:2021:i:c:s0957178721001478
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2021.101314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178721001478
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2021.101314?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. Lee V. White & Nicole D. Sintov, 2020. "Health and financial impacts of demand-side response measures differ across sociodemographic groups," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 50-60, January.
    2. Meredith Fowlie & Catherine Wolfram & Patrick Baylis & C Anna Spurlock & Annika Todd-Blick & Peter Cappers, 2021. "Default Effects And Follow-On Behaviour: Evidence From An Electricity Pricing Program [The Impact of Presumed Consent Legislation on Cadaveric Oorgan Donation: A Cross-country Study”]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 2886-2934.
    3. Faruqui, Ahmad & Malko, J.Robert, 1983. "The residential demand for electricity by time-of-use: A survey of twelve experiments with peak load pricing," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 8(10), pages 781-795.
    4. Davis, Alexander L. & Krishnamurti, Tamar & Fischhoff, Baruch & Bruine de Bruin, Wandi, 2013. "Setting a standard for electricity pilot studies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 401-409.
    5. Cappers, Peter & Spurlock, C. Anna & Todd, Annika & Jin, Ling, 2018. "Are vulnerable customers any different than their peers when exposed to critical peak pricing: Evidence from the U.S," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 421-432.
    6. repec:aen:journl:1980v01-02-a04 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Caves, Douglas W. & Christensen, Laurits R. & Herriges, Joseph A., 1984. "Consistency of residential customer response in time-of-use electricity pricing experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-2), pages 179-203.
    8. William J. Hausman & John L. Neufeld, 1984. "Time-of-Day Pricing in the U.S. Electric Power Industry at the Turn of the Century," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 116-126, Spring.
    9. Massimo, Filippini, 2011. "Short- and long-run time-of-use price elasticities in Swiss residential electricity demand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5811-5817, October.
    10. Peter C. Reiss & Matthew W. White, 2005. "Household Electricity Demand, Revisited," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 853-883.
    11. repec:aen:journl:1995v16-01-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Henley, Andrew & Peirson, John, 1994. "Time-of-use electricity pricing : Evidence from a British experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 421-426.
    13. Dennis Aigner, 1985. "The Residential Electricity Time-of-Use Pricing Experiments: What Have We Learned?," NBER Chapters, in: Social Experimentation, pages 11-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Caves, Douglas W. & Christensen, Laurits R. & Herriges, Joseph A., 1984. "Modelling alternative residential peak-load electricity rate structures," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 249-268, March.
    15. Valeria Di Cosmo & Sean Lyons & Anne Nolan, 2014. "Estimating the Impact of Time-of-Use Pricing on Irish Electricity Demand," The Energy Journal, , vol. 35(2), pages 117-136, April.
    16. Douglas W. Caves & Laurits R. Christensen & Joseph A. Herriges, 1987. "The Neoclassical Model of Consumer Demand with Identically Priced Commodities: An Application to Time-of-Use Electricity Pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(4), pages 564-580, Winter.
    17. Patrick, Robert H., 1990. "Rate structure effects and regression parameter instability across time-of-use electricity pricing experiments," Resources and Energy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 179-195, July.
    18. Filippini, Massimo, 1995. "Swiss residential demand for electricity by time-of-use," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 281-290, November.
    19. Caves, Douglas W. & Christensen, L. R. & Herriges, Joseph A., 1987. "Neoclassical Model of Consumer Demand with Identically Priced Commodities; And An Application to Time of Use Electricity Pricing," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10793, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gunkel, Philipp Andreas & Bergaentzlé, Claire-Marie & Keles, Dogan & Scheller, Fabian & Jacobsen, Henrik Klinge, 2023. "Grid tariff designs to address electrification and their allocative impacts," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Rabie, Dalia & Farzaneh, Hooman, 2026. "A novel modeling framework for demand response-based energy management systems in smart electricity markets, using optimization and multi-criteria decision making techniques," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 405(C).

    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. Woo, C.K. & Liu, Y. & Zarnikau, J. & Shiu, A. & Luo, X. & Kahrl, F., 2018. "Price elasticities of retail energy demands in the United States: New evidence from a panel of monthly data for 2001–2016," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 460-474.
    2. Woo, C.K. & Shiu, A. & Liu, Y. & Luo, X. & Zarnikau, J., 2018. "Consumption effects of an electricity decarbonization policy: Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 887-902.
    3. Woo, C.K. & Sreedharan, P. & Hargreaves, J. & Kahrl, F. & Wang, J. & Horowitz, I., 2014. "A review of electricity product differentiation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 262-272.
    4. Herter, Karen & Wayland, Seth, 2010. "Residential response to critical-peak pricing of electricity: California evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1561-1567.
    5. Hobman, Elizabeth V. & Frederiks, Elisha R. & Stenner, Karen & Meikle, Sarah, 2016. "Uptake and usage of cost-reflective electricity pricing: Insights from psychology and behavioural economics," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 455-467.
    6. Massimo, Filippini, 2011. "Short- and long-run time-of-use price elasticities in Swiss residential electricity demand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5811-5817, October.
    7. Boßmann, Tobias & Eser, Eike Johannes, 2016. "Model-based assessment of demand-response measures—A comprehensive literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1637-1656.
    8. Thorsnes, Paul & Williams, John & Lawson, Rob, 2012. "Consumer responses to time varying prices for electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 552-561.
    9. Woo, C.K. & Li, R. & Shiu, A. & Horowitz, I., 2013. "Residential winter kWh responsiveness under optional time-varying pricing in British Columbia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 288-297.
    10. Burns, Kelly & Mountain, Bruce, 2021. "Do households respond to Time-Of-Use tariffs? Evidence from Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    11. Henley, A & Peirson , J, "undated". "Energy Pricing and Temperature Interaction: British Experimental Evidence," Discussion Papers 9616, Department of Economics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
    12. Guo, Peiyang & Lam, Jacqueline C.K. & Li, Victor O.K., 2019. "Drivers of domestic electricity users’ price responsiveness: A novel machine learning approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 900-913.
    13. Alberini, Anna & Filippini, Massimo, 2011. "Response of residential electricity demand to price: The effect of measurement error," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 889-895, September.
    14. Mountain, Dean C. & Lawson, Evelyn L., 1995. "Some initial evidence of Canadian responsiveness to time-of-use electricity rates: Detailed daily and monthly analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 189-212, August.
    15. Torriti, Jacopo, 2013. "The significance of occupancy steadiness in residential consumer response to Time-of-Use pricing: Evidence from a stochastic adjustment model," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 49-56.
    16. Kim, Jihyo & Lee, Soomin & Jang, Heesun, 2022. "Lessons from residential electricity demand analysis on the time of use pricing experiment in South Korea," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    17. Youn, Hyungho & Jin, Hyun Joung, 2016. "The effects of progressive pricing on household electricity use," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1078-1088.
    18. Mostafa Baladi, S. & Herriges, Joseph A. & Sweeney, Thomas J., 1998. "Residential response to voluntary time-of-use electricity rates," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 225-244, September.
    19. Benjamin Volland & Ivan Tilov, 2018. "Price elasticities of electricity demand in Switzerland: Results from a household panel," IRENE Working Papers 18-03, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    20. Ciarreta, Aitor & Espinosa, Maria Paz & Pizarro-Irizar, Cristina, 2023. "Pricing policies for efficient demand side management in liberalized electricity markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(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:juipol:v:73:y:2021:i:c:s0957178721001478. 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: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.