Use Case 2: Estimate the relative effectiveness of interventions like peer comparison feedback
Rationale
Peer comparison seems to mitigate consumers’ biases by providing better information, eliminating inattention and motivating towards long-term energy conservation. In this use case, we will estimate the effectiveness of behavioural interventions like peer comparison feedback (comparisons of a household’s with that of its neighbours) on residential consumers’ energy use. At the same time, we will provide energy conservation tips to help customers save energy and costs. Generally, perceiving what other people do either directly or indirectly, through information given by a third party seems to have a powerful influence on people’s behaviour. This use case will leverage the following methods:
Home Energy Report (HER)
Printed letters or digital documents, that provide information on customer household’s energy consumption uses over time. HERs also compare customer’s household energy consumption with other households with similar characteristics and they offer customized tips to help customers save energy and costs.
Energy conservation tips
Personalized energy conservation tips can help consumers lower their energy consumption, better understand the energy use of their everyday appliances and eventually lead to better retrofit investments.
Different message framings
To increase the level of information understanding by the users, we aim to use a clear and simple consumer ranking system that uses different ways to convey information (ranks, emojis etc.). Our goal is to communicate different message framings to different treatment groups.
Goal setting interfaces
Interfaces based on users’ desire of fulfilling a given objective, either induced by the interface or self imposed by home inhabitants.
Direct feedback
Timely updated in home displays (IHDs) showing the home current energy consumption.
Timely updated in home displays (IHDs) showing the home current energy consumption.
Showing how home consumption evolves over time and highlighting temporal correlations.
Rationale
Goal setting interfaces
Interfaces based on users’ desire of fulfilling a given objective, either induced by the interface or self imposed by home inhabitants.
Direct feedback
Timely updated in home displays (IHDs) showing the home current energy consumption.
Timely updated in home displays (IHDs) showing the home current energy consumption.
Showing how home consumption evolves over time and highlighting temporal correlations.
In the second use case we will estimate the impact of provided information regarding the comparisons of a household’s energy use with that of similar neighbours and we will provide energy conservation tips through Home Energy Reports. Generally, perceiving what other people do either directly or indirectly, through information given by a third party, has a powerful influence on agents behaviour. This use case will leverage the following methods:
Home Energy Report (HER)
Printed letters or digital documents, that provide information on customer household’s energy consumption uses over time. HERs also compare customer’s household energy consumption with other households with similar characteristics and they offer customized tips to help customers save energy and costs.
Peak Energy Report (PER)
Target household electricity consumption during peak load events that periodically occur when electricity demand is high. PERs contain information about household consumption during on-peak periods indicating consumers’ performance and use moral suasion and social comparison to promote conservation during off-peak periods.
Different message framings
To increase the level of information understanding by the users, we aim to use a clear and simple consumer ranking system that uses different ways to convey information (ranks, emojis etc.). By communicating different framings to different treatment groups, with different frequencies, we will be able to track the marginal effect.
Research Questions
Design & Impact
We expect that the use of the Home Energy Reports will cause households that previously used more than the norm to decrease usage, but also cause households that used less than the norm to use more. However, empirical results show that even low energy consumption households that compare most favourably to their neighbours do not increase energy use. In this sense, the planed intervention is expected not to cause a “descriptive norm boomerang effect”.
Key Performance Indicators
Design & Impact
We expect that the “descriptive norm” element of the Home Energy Report treatment, to cause households that previously used more than the norm to decrease usage, but also cause households that used less than the norm to use more. However, empirical results show that even low energy consumption households that compare most favourably to their neighbours do not increase energy use. In this sense, the planed intervention is expected not to cause a “descriptive norm boomerang effect”.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No