Arbeitspapier

Information v. Energy Efficiency Incentives: Evidence from Residential Electricity Consumption in Maryland

We focus on two utility programs intended to reduce energy usage and the associated CO2 emissions - a home energy audit and rebates on the purchase of high-efficiency air-source heat pumps. We use a unique panel dataset from participating and non-participating households to estimate the average treatment effect of participating in either program on electricity usage. We fit models with household-by-season, season-by-year, and household-by-year fixed effects to account for all possible confounders that might be influence energy usage. Since the programs are voluntary, we seek to restore near-exogeneity of the program treatment by matching participating households with control households. We deploy coarsened exact matching (CEM; Iacus et al., 2011) as our main matching method. We ask whether it is sufficient to match households based on past electricity usage, or if we gain by adding structural characteristics of the home, including heating system type. We find that the two programs reduce electricity usage by 5% on average. The effects are strong in both winter and summer for the energy audit group but appear to be stronger in the winter for the heat pump rebate group. Adding house characteristics to the matching variables does seem to affect results, suggesting that using past usage alone may not be sufficient to identify the effects of program participation.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Nota di Lavoro ; No. 18.2015

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices
Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
Thema
Energy Efficiency
Household Behavior
Energy Efficiency Incentives
Electricity Usage
Home Energy Audit

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Alberini, Anna
Towe, Charles
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
(wo)
Milano
(wann)
2015

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Alberini, Anna
  • Towe, Charles
  • Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)

Entstanden

  • 2015

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