IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v16y2005i1p47-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utility Green Pricing Programs: A Statistical Analysis of Program Effectiveness

Author

Listed:
  • Ryan Wiser
  • Scott Olson
  • Lori Bird
  • Blair Swezey

Abstract

Utility green pricing programs represent one way in which consumers can voluntarily support the development of renewable energy. The design features and effectiveness of these programs varies considerably. Based on a survey of utility program managers in the United States, this article provides insight into which program features might help maximize both customer participation in green pricing programs and the amount of renewable energy purchased by customers in those programs. We find that program length has a substantial impact on customer participation and purchases; to achieve higher levels of success, utilities will need to remain committed to their product offering for some time. Our findings also suggest that utilities should consider higher renewable energy purchase thresholds for residential customers in order to maximize renewable energy sales. Smaller utilities are found to be more successful than larger utilities, and we find some evidence that providing private benefits to non-residential participants can enhance success. Interestingly, we find little evidence that the cost of the green pricing product greatly impacts customer participation and renewable energy sales, at least over the narrow range of premiums embedded in our data set, and for the initial set of green power purchasers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan Wiser & Scott Olson & Lori Bird & Blair Swezey, 2005. "Utility Green Pricing Programs: A Statistical Analysis of Program Effectiveness," Energy & Environment, , vol. 16(1), pages 47-68, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:16:y:2005:i:1:p:47-68
    DOI: 10.1260/0958305053516172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/0958305053516172
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1260/0958305053516172?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. Wiser, Ryan H., 1998. "Green power marketing: increasing customer demand for renewable energy," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 107-119, June.
    2. Roe, Brian & Teisl, Mario F. & Levy, Alan & Russell, Matthew, 2001. "US consumers' willingness to pay for green electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 917-925, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dagher, Leila & Bird, Lori & Heeter, Jenny, 2017. "Residential green power demand in the United States," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(PB), pages 1062-1068.
    2. Cardella, Eric & Ewing, Brad & Williams, Ryan Blake, 2018. "Green is Good – The Impact of Information Nudges on the Adoption of Voluntary Green Power Plans," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266583, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.

    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. Herbes, Carsten & Ramme, Iris, 2014. "Online marketing of green electricity in Germany—A content analysis of providers’ websites," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 257-266.
    2. Ritsuko Ozaki, 2011. "Adopting sustainable innovation: what makes consumers sign up to green electricity?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Herbes, Carsten & Friege, Christian & Baldo, Davide & Mueller, Kai-Markus, 2015. "Willingness to pay lip service? Applying a neuroscience-based method to WTP for green electricity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 562-572.
    4. Ian H. Rowlands & Daniel Scott & Paul Parker, 2003. "Consumers and green electricity: profiling potential purchasers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 36-48, January.
    5. Hartmann, Patrick & Apaolaza Ibanez, Vanessa, 2007. "Managing customer loyalty in liberalized residential energy markets: The impact of energy branding," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2661-2672, April.
    6. Ma, Chunbo & Rogers, Abbie A. & Kragt, Marit E. & Zhang, Fan & Polyakov, Maksym & Gibson, Fiona & Chalak, Morteza & Pandit, Ram & Tapsuwan, Sorada, 2015. "Consumers’ willingness to pay for renewable energy: A meta-regression analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 93-109.
    7. Bosi, Stefano & Desmarchelier, David, 2018. "An economic model of metapopulation dynamics," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 387(C), pages 196-204.
    8. Wiser, R. H., 2000. "The role of public policy in emerging green power markets: an analysis of marketer preferences," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 177-212, June.
    9. Nicolli, Francesco & Vona, Francesco, 2012. "The Evolution of Renewable Energy Policy in OECD Countries: Aggregate Indicators and Determinants," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 130897, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    10. Campbell, Robert M. & Venn, Tyron J. & Anderson, Nathaniel M., 2016. "Social preferences toward energy generation with woody biomass from public forests in Montana, USA," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 58-67.
    11. Maria Jua Bachelet & Leonardo Becchetti & Stefano Manfredonia, 2019. "The Green Bonds Premium Puzzle: The Role of Issuer Characteristics and Third-Party Verification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-22, February.
    12. van Putten, Marloes & Lijesen, Mark & Özel, Tanju & Vink, Nancy & Wevers, Harm, 2014. "Valuing the preferences for micro-generation of renewables by househoulds," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 596-604.
    13. Fang, Xingming & Wang, Lu & Sun, Chuanwang & Zheng, Xuemei & Wei, Jing, 2021. "Gap between words and actions: Empirical study on consistency of residents supporting renewable energy development in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PA).
    14. Ebers Broughel, Anna, 2019. "On the ground in sunny Mexico: A case study of consumer perceptions and willingness to pay for solar-powered devices," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-1.
    15. Menz, Fredric C. & Vachon, Stephan, 2006. "The effectiveness of different policy regimes for promoting wind power: Experiences from the states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(14), pages 1786-1796, September.
    16. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p544jc8op is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Winitra Leelapattana & Shih-Yun Hsu & Weerapon Thongma & Chun Chen & Fu-Mei Chiang, 2019. "Understanding the Impact of Environmental Education on Tourists’ Future Visit Intentions to Leisure Farms in Mountain Regions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-13, March.
    18. Sagebiel, Julian & Müller, Jakob R. & Rommel, Jens, 2013. "Are Consumers Willing to Pay More for Electricity from Cooperatives? Results from an Online Choice Experiment in Germany," MPRA Paper 52385, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Lim, Kyoung-Min & Lim, Seul-Ye & Yoo, Seung-Hoon, 2014. "Estimating the economic value of residential electricity use in the Republic of Korea using contingent valuation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 601-606.
    20. Zorić, Jelena & Hrovatin, Nevenka, 2012. "Household willingness to pay for green electricity in Slovenia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-187.
    21. Garces-Voisenat, Juan-Pedro & Mukherjee, Zinnia, 2016. "Paying for green energy: The case of the Chilean Patagonia," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 397-414.

    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:sae:engenv:v:16:y:2005:i:1:p:47-68. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.