IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11386.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Electric Vehicles Aid the Renewable Transition? Evidence from a Field Experiment Incentivising Midday Charging

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea La Nauze
  • Lana Friesen
  • Kai Li Lim
  • Flavio Menezes
  • Lionel Page
  • Thara Philip
  • Jake Whitehead

Abstract

In a field experiment tracking 390 electric vehicles minute-by-minute, we show that incentives reduce charging by 17%—27% during peak times and increase it by 34% during midday when solar generation is highest. Peak charging decreases at home, while midday charging rises out of the home. Participants shift and reduce charging, drive less, and run batteries lower. We find heterogeneity based on rooftop solar ownership, commuting, and having a fast home charger. These findings suggest electric vehicles can support the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy and highlight the enabling role of charging infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea La Nauze & Lana Friesen & Kai Li Lim & Flavio Menezes & Lionel Page & Thara Philip & Jake Whitehead, 2024. "Can Electric Vehicles Aid the Renewable Transition? Evidence from a Field Experiment Incentivising Midday Charging," CESifo Working Paper Series 11386, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11386
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11386.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Michael L, 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt15n8j26f, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    2. Szinai, Julia K. & Sheppard, Colin J.R. & Abhyankar, Nikit & Gopal, Anand R., 2020. "Reduced grid operating costs and renewable energy curtailment with electric vehicle charge management," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    3. Kester, Johannes & Noel, Lance & Zarazua de Rubens, Gerardo & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2018. "Promoting Vehicle to Grid (V2G) in the Nordic region: Expert advice on policy mechanisms for accelerated diffusion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 422-432.
    4. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    5. Parsons, George R. & Hidrue, Michael K. & Kempton, Willett & Gardner, Meryl P., 2014. "Willingness to pay for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric vehicles and their contract terms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 313-324.
    6. Matthew Harding & Steven Sexton, 2017. "Household Response to Time-Varying Electricity Prices," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 337-359, October.
    7. Wolbertus, Rick & Kroesen, Maarten & van den Hoed, Robert & Chorus, Caspar, 2018. "Fully charged: An empirical study into the factors that influence connection times at EV-charging stations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-7.
    8. Matthew Harding & Steven Sexton, 2017. "Household Response to Time-Varying Electricity Prices," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 337-359, October.
    9. Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur & Andrew J. Yates, 2021. "The Electric Vehicle Transition and the Economics of Banning Gasoline Vehicles," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 316-344, August.
    10. Andrea La Nauze, 2019. "Power from the People: Rooftop Solar and a Downward-Sloping Supply of Electricity," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1135-1168.
    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. Leslie A. Martin, 2022. "Driving on Sunbeams: Interactions Between Price Incentives for Electric Vehicles, Residential Solar Photovoltaics and Household Battery Systems," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 41(4), pages 369-384, December.
    2. Gosnell, Greer & McCoy, Daire, 2023. "Market failures and willingness to accept smart meters: Experimental evidence from the UK," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    3. John List & Ioannis Pragidis & Michael Price, 2024. "Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Prosumers: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment in Energy," Natural Field Experiments 00791, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    6. Gaurav Dhamija & Punarjit Roychowdhury & Binay Shankar, 2025. "Does urbanization empower women? Evidence from India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-47, March.
    7. Michael L. Anderson & Fangwen Lu, 2017. "Learning to Manage and Managing to Learn: The Effects of Student Leadership Service," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3246-3261, October.
    8. Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ömer Özak, 2020. "The origins of the division of labor in pre-industrial times," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 297-340, September.
    9. Takao Kato & Yang Song, 2022. "Advising, gender, and performance: Evidence from a university with exogenous adviser–student gender match," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 121-141, January.
    10. Fernández Guerrico, Sofía, 2021. "The effects of trade-induced worker displacement on health and mortality in Mexico," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Billings, Stephen B. & Johnson, Erik B., 2012. "A non-parametric test for industrial specialization," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 312-331.
    12. Daniel Bjorkegren & Joshua Blumenstock & Omowunmi Folajimi-Senjobi & Jacqueline Mauro & Suraj R. Nair, 2022. "Instant Loans Can Lift Subjective Well-Being: A Randomized Evaluation of Digital Credit in Nigeria," Papers 2202.13540, arXiv.org.
    13. Bernard, Tanguy & Dercon, Stefan & Orkin, Kate & Schinaia, Giulio & Seyoum Taffesse, Alemayehu, 2023. "The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Long-term Outcomes in Rural Ethiopia," CEPR Discussion Papers 18492, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    15. Cattaneo, Cristina & Grieco, Daniela, 2021. "Turning opposition into support to immigration: The role of narratives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 785-801.
    16. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Papers 2109.02177, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    17. Bhukta, Rikhia & Pakrashi, Debayan & Saha, Sarani & Sedai, Ashish, 2024. "Community electrification and women’s autonomy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    18. Gharad Bryan & Dean Karlan & Adam Osman, 2024. "Big Loans to Small Businesses: Predicting Winners and Losers in an Entrepreneurial Lending Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(9), pages 2825-2860, September.
    19. Michael Baker & Kevin Milligan, 2016. "Boy-Girl Differences in Parental Time Investments: Evidence from Three Countries," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 399-441.
    20. Clément de Chaisemartin & Nicolás Navarrete H., 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of a Nationwide Socioemotional Learning Program for Disruptive Students," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(3), pages 729-769.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    electric vehicles; field experiment; renewable energy; rooftop solar; dynamic electricity prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_11386. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.