Information Provision, Market Incentives, and Household Electricity Consumption: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Trial

Abstract

We evaluate a large-scale field deployment in which close to 7,000 households subject to time-of-using electricity pricing were provided with an in-home display that provides real-time feedback on electricity consumption and price. We find that receipt of the device results in a reduction in average electricity consumption of about 3%, with this effect roughly constant across hours of the day. We find evidence that households respond to this information in part by forming habits rather than adjusting their load-shifting behavior. We also find that real-time information has an ambiguous effect on household responsiveness to electricity prices, counter to existing literature where information increases responsiveness to price.