Photovoltaics and the Solar Rebound: Evidence for Germany

Konferenzbeitrag

Recent research suggests that households would increase their electricity consumption in the aftermath of installing photovoltaics (PV) panels, a behavioral change commonly referred to as the solar rebound. Drawing on panel data originating from the German Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS), we employ panel estimation methods and the dynamic system estimator developed by Blundell and Bond (1998) to investigate the solar rebound effect, thereby accounting for simultaneity and endogeneity issues relating to PV installation and the electricity price. Our empirical results suggest that PV panel adoption of households hardly reduces the amount of electricity taken from the grid. As we derive theoretically, this outcome implies that the rebound reaches a maximum that is bounded by about 30% for German households. Yet, we are skeptical of whether there is such a large solar rebound effect given the strong economic incentives to feed solar electricity into the public grid in the past

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2021: Climate Economics

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models ; Structure and Scope of Government: General ; Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices
• Subject: Feed-in tariffs ; GMM system estimator ; German Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Frondel, Manuel ; Kaestner, Kathrin ; Sommer, Stephan ; Vance, Colin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/242356
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET