IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0223727.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Money doesn’t matter! Householders’ intentions to reduce standby power are unaffected by personalised pecuniary feedback

Author

Listed:
  • Kathryn Buchanan
  • Riccardo Russo

Abstract

Many researchers have examined whether giving people feedback about their energy use can lead them to decrease it. However, to date no consensus has been reached about which type of eco-feedback is the most effective. We aim to test the efficacy of different feedback techniques by providing participants with personalised information about the annual monetary costs of their home’s standby power usage (i.e., appliances that consume electricity despite not being actively used). Using a sample of 708 participants we tested the following feedback strategies: advice, disaggregation, loss vs gain framing, social norms, and collective information. We measured the impact of each of these feedback conditions on knowledge and intention to change behaviour, and compared them to a control condition. Using both frequentist and Bayesian analyses, we found that relative to the control condition all the feedback strategies led participants to report significant gains in knowledge. Yet, neither the additional knowledge gains, nor the feedback approach used significantly affected behavioural intentions. Consequently, the results suggest that while a wide range of feedback strategies emphasizing the financial impact of standby power consumption can effectively improve knowledge, this approach alone is insufficient in inciting intentions to change energy consumption behaviours.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathryn Buchanan & Riccardo Russo, 2019. "Money doesn’t matter! Householders’ intentions to reduce standby power are unaffected by personalised pecuniary feedback," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-16, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223727
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223727
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223727&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0223727?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buchanan, Kathryn & Russo, Riccardo & Anderson, Ben, 2014. "Feeding back about eco-feedback: How do consumers use and respond to energy monitors?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 138-146.
    2. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    3. Frederiks, Elisha R. & Stenner, Karen & Hobman, Elizabeth V., 2015. "Household energy use: Applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision-making and behaviour," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1385-1394.
    4. Schultz, P. Wesley & Estrada, Mica & Schmitt, Joseph & Sokoloski, Rebecca & Silva-Send, Nilmini, 2015. "Using in-home displays to provide smart meter feedback about household electricity consumption: A randomized control trial comparing kilowatts, cost, and social norms," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P1), pages 351-358.
    5. Rink Hoekstra & Rei Monden & Don van Ravenzwaaij & Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, 2018. "Bayesian reanalysis of null results reported in medicine: Strong yet variable evidence for the absence of treatment effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-9, April.
    6. Sorrell, Steve, 2015. "Reducing energy demand: A review of issues, challenges and approaches," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 74-82.
    7. Buchanan, Kathryn & Russo, Riccardo & Anderson, Ben, 2015. "The question of energy reduction: The problem(s) with feedback," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 89-96.
    8. Delmas, Magali A. & Fischlein, Miriam & Asensio, Omar I., 2013. "Information strategies and energy conservation behavior: A meta-analysis of experimental studies from 1975 to 2012," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 729-739.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valor, Carmen & Escudero, Carmen & Labajo, Victoria & Cossent, Rafael, 2019. "Effective design of domestic energy efficiency displays: A proposed architecture based on empirical evidence," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Buckley, Penelope, 2020. "Prices, information and nudges for residential electricity conservation: A meta-analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Penelope Buckley, 2020. "Prices, information and nudges for residential electricity conservation : A meta-analysis," Post-Print hal-02500507, HAL.
    4. Sylwia Słupik & Joanna Kos-Łabędowicz & Joanna Trzęsiok, 2021. "How to Encourage Energy Savings Behaviours? The Most Effective Incentives from the Perspective of European Consumers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-25, November.
    5. Sloot, Daniel & Scheibehenne, Benjamin, 2022. "Understanding the financial incentive conundrum: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of financial incentive interventions in promoting energy conservation behavior," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    6. Weber, Sylvain & Puddu, Stefano & Pacheco, Diana, 2017. "Move it! How an electric contest motivates households to shift their load profile," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 255-270.
    7. Buchanan, Kathryn & Banks, Nick & Preston, Ian & Russo, Riccardo, 2016. "The British public’s perception of the UK smart metering initiative: Threats and opportunities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 87-97.
    8. Fettermann, Diego Castro & Cavalcante, Caroline Gobbo Sá & Ayala, Néstor Fabián & Avalone, Marianne Costa, 2020. "Configuration of a smart meter for Brazilian customers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Alberts, Genevieve & Gurguc, Zeynep & Koutroumpis, Pantelis & Martin, Ralf & Muûls, Mirabelle & Napp, Tamaryn, 2016. "Competition and norms: A self-defeating combination?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 504-523.
    10. Batalla-Bejerano, Joan & Trujillo-Baute, Elisa & Villa-Arrieta, Manuel, 2020. "Smart meters and consumer behaviour: Insights from the empirical literature," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    11. Hanna Mela & Juha Peltomaa & Marja Salo & Kirsi Mäkinen & Mikael Hildén, 2018. "Framing Smart Meter Feedback in Relation to Practice Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-22, October.
    12. David Fredericks & Zhong Fan & Sandra Woolley & Ed de Quincey & Mike Streeton, 2020. "A Decade On, How Has the Visibility of Energy Changed? Energy Feedback Perceptions from UK Focus Groups," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-17, May.
    13. Quentin Coutellier & Greer Gosnell & Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Goran Strbac & Mingyang Sun & Simon Tindermans, 2019. "Making smart meters smarter the smart way," CEP Discussion Papers dp1602, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Spandagos, Constantine & Baark, Erik & Ng, Tze Ling & Yarime, Masaru, 2021. "Social influence and economic intervention policies to save energy at home: Critical questions for the new decade and evidence from air-condition use," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    15. Mi, Lingyun & Gan, Xiaoli & Sun, Yuhuan & Lv, Tao & Qiao, Lijie & Xu, Ting, 2021. "Effects of monetary and nonmonetary interventions on energy conservation: A meta-analysis of experimental studies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    16. Shen, Meng & Lu, Yujie & Wei, Kua Harn & Cui, Qingbin, 2020. "Prediction of household electricity consumption and effectiveness of concerted intervention strategies based on occupant behaviour and personality traits," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Chatzigeorgiou, I.M. & Andreou, G.T., 2021. "A systematic review on feedback research for residential energy behavior change through mobile and web interfaces," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    18. Nolan Ritter & Julia Anna Bingler, 2021. "Do homo sapiens know their prices? Insights on dysfunctional price mechanisms from a large field experiment," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 21/348, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    19. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    20. Daminato, Claudio & Diaz-Farina, Eugenio & Filippini, Massimo & Padrón-Fumero, Noemi, 2021. "The impact of smart meters on residential water consumption: Evidence from a natural experiment in the Canary Islands," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223727. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.