Making ‘Smart Meters’ smarter? Insights from a behavioural economics pilot field experiment in Copenhagen, Denmark

Bager, Simon; Mundaca, Luis

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2017.04.008

Cited by 62 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Denmark’s cooperative, not‐for‐profit ownership policy has also supported R&D interests by encouraging local innovation, widening the market by benefit‐sharing, and serving regional interests by improving local acceptance, which, in turn, helps to meet the costs of the transition (Eikeland & Inderberg, , p. 172). Prospective policy innovation to involve consumers and prosumers, however, needs to pay more attention to how information is presented and designed, as shown in a study on smart‐metering initiatives in Copenhagen (Bager & Mundaca, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

Kilpeläinen

Aalto

Toivanen

et al. 2019

Review of Policy Research

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The Nordic countries pursue ambitious energy transition goals through national energy policies and in the framework of Nordic cooperation. We propose that the transition is realistic only if it involves the public, private, and nongovernmental organization sectors as regulators, innovators, and advocates of relevant policies and solutions representing the multitude of interests involved. We examine these interests through Q methodological experiments, where 43 expert stakeholders' rank-order statements concerning their preferred policy measures vis-à-vis the electric energy system. Factor analysis of these subjectively held views produces three distinct views. The first two enjoy strong inter-Nordic support. The first view prioritizes market and grid development, and the second view prioritizes electric transport, and solar and wind power. The third, "Finnish" view seeks to enhance security of supply, also via microgrids, and prioritizes biofuels over electric transport. Examining the common ground among the three views, we find that enhanced cooperation requires reinforced stakeholder interaction and policy coordination. Views of Nordic Stakeholders ¿Cómo lograr un sistema de energía más eficiente en el uso de recursos y de clima neutral para el año 2030? Opiniones de los interesados nórdicos:Los países nórdicos tienen ambiciosos objetivos de transición energética a través de políticas energéticas nacionales y en el marco de la cooperación nórdica. Proponemos que la transición será realista solo si involucra a los sectores público, privado y de las ONG co mo reguladores, innovadores y defensores de políticas y soluciones relevantes que representan la multitud de intereses involucrados. Examinamos estos intereses a través de experimentos de metodología Q, donde 43 partes interesadas expertas clasifican las declaraciones de orden con respecto a sus medidas de política preferidas en lo que tiene que ver con el sistema de energía eléctrica. El análisis factorial de estas vistas sostenidas subjetivamente produce tres vistas distintas. Las dos primeras gozan de un fuerte apoyo inter-nórdico. La primera vista prioriza el desarrollo del mercado y la red, y la segunda, el transporte eléctrico, y la energía solar y eólica. La tercera, la vista 'finlandesa' busca mejorar la seguridad del suministro, también a través de microrredes, y prioriza los biocombustibles sobre el transporte eléctrico. Al examinar el terreno común entre los puntos de vista, encontramos que una mayor cooperación requiere una interacción reforzada de los interesados y la coordinación de políticas. PALABRAS CLAVE: Palabras Clave: energía, cambio climático, países desarrollados, medio ambiente About the AuthorsSarah Kilpeläinen is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University, Finland. She works on energy policy and sustainable energy transitions.Pasi Toivanen is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University, Finland. He works on energy policy and sustainable development.Pinja Leh...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

Kilpeläinen

Aalto

Toivanen

et al. 2019

Review of Policy Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The heterogeneity of household characteristics and perceptions may partly explain the 'energy efficiency gap' (Allcott and Greenstone, 2012;Jaffe and Stavins, 1994) between a hypothetical optimum as seen from an outside economics-engineering perspective and observed household decisions, which seem to undervalue future energy savings relative to upfront investment costs, resulting in a typically lower than expected uptake of energy-efficient technologies (reflected in high empirical estimates of implicit discount rates, as reviewed by Hausman, 1979;Train, 1985). Various explanations are discussed in the literature (for a review, see Gillingham and Palmer, 2014), which can be grouped into market barriers (e.g., hidden costs), market failures (e.g., asymmetric or imperfect information, split incentives) and systematic behavioural biases, as described by behavioural economics (e.g., loss aversion, suboptimal decision heuristics, status-quo bias, saliency, procrastination) (Allcott and Mullainathan, 2010;Bager and Mundaca, 2017;Frederick et al, 2002;Kahneman and Tversky, 1979;Lillemo, 2014;Shogren and Taylor, 2008;Simon, 1955).…”

Section: Household Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C

et al. 2018

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Whole-economy scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5°C suggest that direct carbon emissions in the buildings sector should decrease to almost zero by 2050, but leave unanswered the question how this could be achieved by real-world policies. We simulate which policy measures could induce an almost complete decarbonisation of residential heating, the by far largest source of direct emissions in residential buildings. Under which assumptions is it possible, and how long would it take? We use the non-equilibrium bottom-up model FTT:Heat to simulate policies for a transition towards low-carbon heating in a context of inertia and bounded rationality, focusing on the uptake of heating systems. Our results indicate that the near-zero decarbonisation is achievable by 2050, but requires substantial policy efforts. We find that policy mixes are more effective for incentivising the uptake of fuelefficient low-carbon technologies, compared to a residential carbon tax as the only policy. In combination with subsidies and procurement policies for renewables, near-complete decarbonisation could be achieved with a tax of 50-200 €/tCO 2. Without being complimented by additional policies, carbon taxes show a decreasing marginal impact on total emission reductions, thus remaining insufficient for deep decarbonisation. In all scenarios, the decarbonisation of heating would increase projected heating costs faced by households initially, but could lead to cost reductions in most world regions in the medium term. We show that the potential impacts of policies highly depend on behavioural decisionmaking by households, especially in a context of deep decarbonisation and rapid transformation.

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“…Overall, the limited evidence we found of policy interventions that explicitly address behavioural factors was confined to non-governmental actions. Typically, interventions are deployed via experiments, pilot studies or small-scale utility-driven initiatives in (mostly) industrialised countries [21,30,33,66,68,69,71,77,78]. A priori, this situation suggests a divide between governmental and non-governmental initiatives and indicates that local behavioural interventions may need to be coupled or coordinated with national policy instruments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…12 It seems that policy efforts are limited to approaches that reduce the use and implementation of LCETs to the application of economic theory [cf 80]. Consequently, one could argue that current policy is not very effective because, among several factors, it fails to explicitly take account of mounting evidence of suboptimal decision-making and normative, emotional, moral and social influences affecting energy choices and climate action [21,30,32,43,66,78,[81][82][83]. With respect to our review of the documentation, the limited consideration of behavioural factors, and the lack of behavioural-oriented interventions may be driven by a lack of transdisciplinary approaches designed to support policymaking [64,79,84], political and ethical concerns regarding the integration of libertarian paternalistic approaches [85], and a poor understanding of what behavioural science has to offer [86][87][88].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global expansion of climate mitigation policy interventions, the Talanoa Dialogue and the role of behavioural insights

Mundaca

Sonnenschein

Steg

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Commun.

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Increasing attention is being paid to the Paris Climate Agreement and the impacts of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) intended to limit global warming to 1.5°C. However, the nature and evolution of existing policy mixes that underlie NDCs remain poorly understood. This critical issue has emerged from the outcomes of the Talanoa Dialogue for Climate Ambition, where little progress was made in building a comprehensive, evidence-based foundation for effective climate policy. To a large extent, this is due to the nature of the process, and a lack of data related to policy interventions in the pre-2020 period, notably their composition, coverage, and orientation. We seek to address these shortcomings by applying a directed content analysis to a dataset of national and citylevel policy interventions. The aim is to quantify the nature and evolution of policy efforts that promote the adoption of low-carbon energy technologies (LCETs) globally. Fifteen databases, containing more than 10,000 policies and measures were reviewed. Our findings highlight the rapid spread of policy portfolios and an international convergence towards economic incentives (notably subsidies). At the city level, technology and infrastructure policies dominate. However, it is unclear to what extent behavioural factors (i.e., cognitive, motivational and contextual aspects) that affect the choice and use of LCETs are taken into account in policy design. This is particularly important because studies that model the feasibility of the 1.5°C target reveal behavioural changes and the rapid adoption of low-carbon lifestyles as critical enabling factors. In response to the outcomes from the Talanoa Dialogue, we argue that policymakers need to go beyond stringent policy mixes and rapidly re-think their traditional economic-driven policymaking approach. Far more attention needs to be given to behavioural factors when designing, evaluating and implementing LCET policies.

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Making ‘Smart Meters’ smarter? Insights from a behavioural economics pilot field experiment in Copenhagen, Denmark

Cited by 62 publications

References 95 publications

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C

The global expansion of climate mitigation policy interventions, the Talanoa Dialogue and the role of behavioural insights

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