Collaborative Research: Using Field Experiments to Understand Household Barriers to Energy Efficiency in Alaska

能源效率是一个首要的政策目标。对个人而言，这可能意味着显著的福利收益。对整个国家来说，这不仅意味着提高能源独立性，而且意味着实现环境目标。研究小组建议调查为什么个人不能采取看似适应性的保护技术和行为。该提案基于一系列研究，这些研究结合了联合收割机实地实验和阿拉斯加州大型政策举措的数据分析。整个北极地区的供暖成本给社区的复原力带来了压力。寒冷是极端的，碳氢化合物价格波动，当地调整现金收入以应对价格冲击的机会有限。节能似乎是适应性的，阿拉斯加州提供大量补贴，以促进家庭节能。尽管如此，采用节能技术来降低家庭供暖成本的相对较少。研究小组提出了三个相关的研究来理解为什么。该项目探讨了个人决策规则，现金回报的作用，信息，滋扰和其他隐性成本的投资，以减少能源的空间和热水热。该项目的重点是发现机会，设计更好的政策。认真对待家庭决策的复杂性，它将产生新的信息，工程模型，行为模型，方案的有效性和政策的选择。它将产生关于家庭取暖油使用的第一个可用数据-这是对北方能源政策的一个关键投入。 该项目与当地利益攸关方、机构和学术界合作，为今后建立有效的伙伴关系提供经验教训。 最后，通过直接参与该项目，并结合教育机会，该项目需要对当地参与者进行大量的推广和培训。研究项目的第一部分联合分析了阿拉斯加家庭能源回扣计划（HERP）的参与者记录，该计划为减少空间和热水热量提供补贴，以及天然气公用事业账单记录。详细的计划和能源消耗数据允许评估计划预测和实际家庭收益，指出可能因节能以外的原因而发生的投资，并表明没有追求的成本效益投资。这种分析将揭示在面对相关信息时做出节能决策的方式及其在节能方面的有效性。第二部分的研究措施的比较重要性，隐藏的，非金钱成本完成HERP的初步家庭能源评估。我们将进行一个实地实验，系统地隔离和消除参与者的成本和任务的不确定性。此外，收集技术信息的激励措施将提供因果证据，证明关于HERP参与和完成情况的信息的重要性。该研究项目的第三部分测量了向农村消费者提供有关其热量消费和支出的实时信息的行为影响。基本上所有阿拉斯加农村家庭都使用取暖油作为主要热源，但消费者绘制行为实现成本的能力有限：只有在燃料油箱重新填充时才能观察到成本，这可能每年发生2-3次。通过部署阿拉斯加能源和电力中心专门为偏远农村应用开发的新的取暖油计量技术，我们评估了信息急剧增加的行为影响。这项研究将产生第一个阿拉斯加测量的住宅取暖油需求数据集。该提案将大大提高人们对看似适应性的能源效率投资为何得不到实施的复杂原因的认识。研究团队将获取研究人员以前无法获得的信息，并进行实验，以创建观测数据无法提供的反事实，以：更好地了解采用者的动机;重新校准建筑能源使用的工程模型，以纳入人类行为;测量采用节能技术的金钱激励的因果效应;制作阿拉斯加农村取暖油实际需求的新数据集;确定隐藏成本作为节能计划参与障碍的重要性。

Energy efficiency is a policy goal of first magnitude. For individuals, it can imply significant welfare gains. For the country as a whole, it can imply not only improvement in energy independence but also attaining environmental goals. The research team proposes to investigate the reasons why individuals fail to adopt seemingly adaptive conservation technologies and behaviors. The proposal is based on a series of studies that combine field experiments and data analysis of large policies initiatives in the state of Alaska. Heating costs throughout the polar North stress community resilience. Cold is extreme, hydrocarbon prices volatile, and local opportunity to adjust cash income to price shocks limited. Energy conservation would appear adaptive, and the State of Alaska provides substantial subsidies to facilitate household energy conservation. Despite this, relatively few adopt energy efficient technologies to reduce home heating costs. The research team proposes three related studies to understand why. The project explores individual decision rules, the role of cash payoffs, information, and nuisance and other hidden costs of making investments to reduce energy for space and hot water heat. The project is focused on discovering opportunities to design better policy. Taking seriously the complexity of household decision-making, it will produce new information on engineering models, behavioral models, program effectiveness and policy alternatives. It will generate the first publically available data on household heating oil use -- a critical input to Northern energy policy. The project works collaboratively with local stakeholders, agencies, and academic communities, which will produce lessons for building future effective partnerships. Finally, the project entails substantial outreach and training with local participants through direct participation in the project in combination with educational opportunities.The first part of the research project jointly analyzes participant records in Alaska's Home Energy Rebate Program (HERP), which subsidizes investments to reduce space and hot water heat, and gas utility billing records. Detailed program and energy consumption data permit assessment of both program-predicted and actual household payoffs, point to investments that may occur for reasons other than energy conservation, and indicate cost-effective investments not pursued. This analysis will reveal the way decisions about conservation are made in the face of relevant information and their effectiveness in producing energy savings. The second part of the research measures the comparative importance of hidden, non-pecuniary costs of completing the HERP's initial home energy assessment. We will conduct a field experiment that systematically isolates and removes participant costs and uncertainty from the task. Also, the incentives to gather technology information will give causal evidence of the importance of information on HERP participation and completion. The third part of the research project measures behavioral impacts of providing rural consumers real-time information on their consumption and expenditures for heat. Essentially all rural Alaskan households use heating oil as primary heat source, but consumer ability to map realized costs of behavior is limited: Costs are observed only when the fuel oil tank is refilled, which may occur as little as 2-3 times a year. By deploying new heating oil metering technology developed by the Alaska Center for Energy and Power specifically for remote rural application, we assess behavioral effects of a dramatic increase in information. This study will generate the first Alaska dataset of measured residential heating oil demand. The proposal will significantly improve knowledge of the complex reasons why seemingly adaptive energy efficiency investments are not made. The research team will access information not previously available to researchers, and conduct experiments to create counterfactuals that observational data cannot deliver, to: better understand the motivations of adopters; recalibrate engineering models of building energy use to incorporate human behavior; measure the causal effect of pecuniary incentives in the adoption of energy savings technologies; produce a novel dataset of actual demand for heating oil in rural Alaska; determine the importance of hidden costs as a barrier to energy conservation program participation.