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。对个人而言，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，也意味着实现环境目标。研究小组建议调查为什么个体不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举措的实地实验和数据分析。整个北极地区的供暖成本对社区的恢复能力造成了压力。严寒天气极端，油气价格波动剧烈，当地调整现金收入的机会对价格冲击有限。节约能源似乎是适应性的，阿拉斯加州为促进家庭节约能源提供了大量补贴。尽管如此，很少有人采用节能技术来降低家庭供暖成本。研究小组提出了三个相关的研究来理解其中的原因。该项目探讨了个人决策规则、现金回报的作用、信息、妨害和其他投资的隐性成本，以减少空间和热水的能源消耗。该项目的重点是发现设计更好政策的机会。考虑到家庭决策的复杂性，它将产生关于工程模型、行为模型、项目有效性和政策选择的新信息。它将产生第一个公开的家庭取暖油使用数据，这是对北方能源政策的重要投入。该项目与当地利益相关者、机构和学术界合作，将为今后建立有效的伙伴关系提供经验。最后，该项目需要通过直接参与项目并结合教育机会，向当地参与者提供大量的外联和培训。研究项目的第一部分共同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的投资提供补贴，并分析了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，并表明不进行具有成本效益的投资。这一分析将揭示有关节能的决策是如何在相关信息面前做出的，以及它们在产生节能方面的有效性。研究的第二部分衡量了隐性成本的相对重要性，完成HERP的初始家庭能源评估的非金钱成本。我们将进行现场实验，系统地隔离并消除参与者的成本和任务中的不确定性。此外，收集技术信息的激励措施将为HERP参与和完成信息的重要性提供因果证据。研究项目的第三部分测量了向农村消费者提供他们的消费和支出的实时信息对行为的影响。基本上所有阿拉斯加的农村家庭都使用取暖油作为主要的热源，但是消费者绘制行为的实际成本的能力是有限的：只有当燃料箱重新加满时才会观察到成本，这种情况每年可能只发生2-3次。通过部署由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对行为的影响。这项研究将产生第一个阿拉斯加住宅取暖油需求测量数据集。这一提议将大大提高人们对为何不进行看似适应性的能源效率投资的复杂原因的认识。研究小组将获取以前研究人员无法获得的信息，并进行实验以创造观测数据无法提供的反事实，以便：更好地了解采用者的动机；重新调整建筑能源使用的工程模型，以纳入人类行为；衡量金钱激励在采用节能技术方面的因果效应；制作一个关于阿拉斯加农村地区取暖油实际需求的新数据集；确定隐性成本作为参与节能计划的障碍的重要性。

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.