Electricity Conservation Campaigns and High Consumption Appliances - A Field Experiment on Feedback, Goal Setting and Incentives

Abstract

Feedback interventions are considered a promising instrument to promote
energy conservation among households and thus, to mitigate climate change. Need. However,
it remains unclear whether their effectiveness can be increased by incentivizing the
pursuit of energy-savings goals. In this paper, we report the results
of a randomized control trial with 442 households over eight months in Singapore. We
randomly combine energy consumption feedback reports with specific energy savings goals
and two types of incentives: i. monetary incentives for the household and ii. environmental
incentives in the form of donations to an environmental organization. Results.
The combination of feedback and goal setting significantly reduced household electricity
consumption by approximately 16 percent compared with the control group. Treatment
effects persisted in the post-intervention period. Additional monetary, or environmental
incentives did not further reduce the electricity consumption in our sample. Importantly,
our results point to a partial shift in consumption from high- to low-electricity consumption
appliances. Our findings suggest that (low cost) behavioral interventions should
be specially targeted at high-electricity consuming appliances and that the availability
of more energy-efficient alternative technologies may help to make behavioral electricity
savings campaigns successful. Behavioral interventions and efficient technologies
may thus be important complements in combating climate change.

Keywords: energy conservation; incentives; feedback; goal-setting; field experiment

JEL Classification: Q50, Q40, C93, D91