Collaborative Research: Using field experiments to understand household barriers to energy efficiency in Alaska

能源效率是首要的政策目标。对于个人来说，这可能意味着显著的福利收益。对于整个国家来说，这不仅意味着能源独立性的提高，还意味着实现环境目标。研究小组建议调查个人未能采用看似适应性的保护技术和行为的原因。该提案基于一系列研究，这些研究结合了阿拉斯加州大型政策倡议的实地试验和数据分析。整个极地北方的供暖成本给社区带来了压力。极端寒冷，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，阿拉斯加州提供了大量补贴，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。研究小组提出了三项相关研究来解释其中的原因。该项目探索了个人决策规则、现金回报、信息和滋扰的作用以及为减少空间和热水供暖的能源而进行投资的其他隐性成本。该项目的重点是发现机会，以制定更好的政策。认真考虑家庭决策的复杂性，它将产生关于工程模型、行为模型、计划有效性和政策选择的新信息。它将生成第一个公开的家庭取暖油使用数据--这是北方能源政策的关键投入。该项目与当地利益攸关方、机构和学术界合作，这将为建立未来有效的伙伴关系提供经验教训。最后，该项目需要通过直接参与该项目并结合教育机会与当地参与者进行大量的外联和培训。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(HELP)的参与者记录，该计划补贴投资以减少空间和热水加热，以及天然气公用事业的账单记录。详细的计划和能源消耗数据允许对计划预测和实际家庭收益进行评估，指出可能出于节能以外的原因进行的投资，并表明没有进行具有成本效益的投资。这一分析将揭示在面对相关信息时做出节能决策的方式，以及它们在节约能源方面的有效性。研究的第二部分衡量了完成Herp的初始家庭能源评估的隐性非金钱成本的相对重要性。我们将进行一项实地实验，系统地分离和消除任务中的参与者成本和不确定性。此外，收集技术信息的动机将提供关于HELP参与和完成的信息的重要性的因果证据。研究项目的第三部分衡量了向农村消费者提供他们的消费和取暖支出的实时信息对行为的影响。基本上，阿拉斯加的所有农村家庭都使用取暖油作为主要热源，但消费者绘制已实现行为成本的能力有限：只有在燃料油油箱重新灌装时才能观察到成本，这种情况一年可能只发生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。这项研究将生成阿拉斯加第一个测量的住宅取暖油需求数据集。这项提议将大大提高人们对看似适应性强的能效投资为何没有进行的复杂原因的了解。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察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；测量金钱激励在采用节能技术方面的因果效应；制作阿拉斯加农村取暖油实际需求的新数据集；确定隐藏成本作为参与节能计划障碍的重要性。

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.