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Nudging Electricity Consumption Using TOU Pricing and Feedback: Evidence from Irish Households

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  • Di Cosmo, Valeria
  • O'Hora, Denis
  • Devitt, Niamh

Abstract

This paper analyses the electricity usage of 5,000 Irish residential consumers in response to the introduction of TOU tariffs and three different forms of financial feedback: immediate feedback from in-home displays (IHD), monthly billing and bimonthly billing. Halfhourly data on consumption collected during the trial indicated that TOU tariffs reduced consumption at peak, with some reductions lasting beyond the end of the peak period and post-peak spikes in usage were not observed. IHD feedback resulted in the most reliable reductions and bimonthly billing the least. Households with greater education used the information associated to the TOU tariffs slightly better than the average.

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  • Di Cosmo, Valeria & O'Hora, Denis & Devitt, Niamh, 2015. "Nudging Electricity Consumption Using TOU Pricing and Feedback: Evidence from Irish Households," Papers WP508, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp508
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    2. Barjaková, Martina & Belton, Cameron & Purcell, Karl & Lunn, Pete, 2021. "Efficient ways of communicating time-of-use electricity tariffs in Ireland: Plain and simple," Papers WP704, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. McAndrew, Ryan & Mulcahy, Rory & Gordon, Ross & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah, 2021. "Household energy efficiency interventions: A systematic literature review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Valeria Di Cosmo & Elisa Trujillo-Baute, 2018. "From forward to spot prices: producers, retailers and loss averse consumers in electricity markets," Working Papers 2018/18, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    5. O'Neill, E. & Weeks, M., 2018. "Causal Tree Estimation of Heterogeneous Household Response to Time-Of-Use Electricity Pricing Schemes," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1865, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Andruszkiewicz, Jerzy & Lorenc, Józef & Weychan, Agnieszka, 2020. "Seasonal variability of price elasticity of demand of households using zonal tariffs and its impact on hourly load of the power system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    7. Kang, Jieyi & Reiner, David M., 2022. "What is the effect of weather on household electricity consumption? Empirical evidence from Ireland," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    8. L. (Lisa B.) Ryan & Sarah La Monaca & Linda Mastrandrea & Petr Spodniak, 2018. "Harnessing electricity retail tariffs to support climate change policy," Open Access publications 10197/9911, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    9. Nikolaos Iliopoulos & Motoharu Onuki & Miguel Esteban, 2021. "Shedding Light on the Factors That Influence Residential Demand Response in Japan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-23, May.
    10. Hari Agung Yuniarto & Nur Mayke Eka Normasari & Sella Friscilla Silalahi & Irene Clarisa Gunawan & Deendarlianto & Indra Ardhanayudha Aditya & Arionmaro Asi Simaremare & Fajar Nurrohman Haryadi, 2024. "Customer behaviour towards energy usage with time of use tariff: a systematic literature review," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 44-61, February.
    11. Chen, Xiao & Zanocco, Chad & Flora, June & Rajagopal, Ram, 2022. "Constructing dynamic residential energy lifestyles using Latent Dirichlet Allocation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 318(C).
    12. Eoghan O'Neill & Melvyn Weeks, 2018. "Causal Tree Estimation of Heterogeneous Household Response to Time-Of-Use Electricity Pricing Schemes," Papers 1810.09179, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2019.

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