Nudging households to save electricity with feedback: Experimental evidence from Vietnam

IF 9.3 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Energy Policy Pub Date : 2024-10-29 DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114378

Nhu Ngoc Nguyen , Daisaku Goto , Duc Tran , Ha Thu Vu

{"title":"Nudging households to save electricity with feedback: Experimental evidence from Vietnam","authors":"Nhu Ngoc Nguyen , Daisaku Goto , Duc Tran , Ha Thu Vu","doi":"10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114378","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Information feedback based on the real-time records of smart meters has shown the potential to nudge residential electricity conservation in developed countries. However, evidence on this topic in developing countries is scarce and limited in scale. This paper provides new experimental evidence regarding how information feedback affects household electricity consumption in Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia. By conducting a randomized controlled trial involving 1,028 households in Da Nang city, we show that three types of feedback – self-comparison, social comparison, and goal setting – can help households reduce their daily electricity consumption 4.1–6.7%. We explore the heterogeneous effects and find that social comparison exhibits discernible heterogeneity depending on the day of the week. Social comparison is also effective for both low and high quantiles of electricity consumers, whereas self-comparison and goal setting are effective mainly for the latter. We discuss the implications of our empirical findings for policies related to using feedback to nudge household electricity conservation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11672,"journal":{"name":"Energy Policy","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 114378"},"PeriodicalIF":9.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Energy Policy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421524003987","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Information feedback based on the real-time records of smart meters has shown the potential to nudge residential electricity conservation in developed countries. However, evidence on this topic in developing countries is scarce and limited in scale. This paper provides new experimental evidence regarding how information feedback affects household electricity consumption in Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia. By conducting a randomized controlled trial involving 1,028 households in Da Nang city, we show that three types of feedback – self-comparison, social comparison, and goal setting – can help households reduce their daily electricity consumption 4.1–6.7%. We explore the heterogeneous effects and find that social comparison exhibits discernible heterogeneity depending on the day of the week. Social comparison is also effective for both low and high quantiles of electricity consumers, whereas self-comparison and goal setting are effective mainly for the latter. We discuss the implications of our empirical findings for policies related to using feedback to nudge household electricity conservation.

查看原文本刊更多论文

通过反馈促使家庭节约用电：越南的实验证据

在发达国家，基于智能电表实时记录的信息反馈已显示出促进居民节约用电的潜力。然而，发展中国家在这方面的证据却很少，而且规模有限。本文就信息反馈如何影响东南亚发展中国家越南的家庭用电量提供了新的实验证据。通过对岘港市 1028 个家庭进行随机对照试验，我们发现三种类型的反馈--自我比较、社会比较和目标设定--可以帮助家庭减少 4.1-6.7% 的日常用电量。我们对异质性效果进行了探讨，发现社会比较在一周中的不同日期表现出明显的异质性。社会比较对低量化和高量化用电户都有效，而自我比较和目标设定主要对后者有效。我们将讨论我们的实证研究结果对利用反馈来督促家庭节约用电的相关政策的影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Energy Policy 管理科学-环境科学

CiteScore

17.30

自引率

5.60%

发文量

540

审稿时长

7.9 months

期刊介绍： Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contribute to climate change mitigation. The attributes of energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation, taxation and other public policy techniques. Energy policy is closely related to climate change policy because totalled worldwide the energy sector emits more greenhouse gas than other sectors.