Stated Preferences for Space Heating Investment

Energy retrofits are an important leverage to reduce energy consumption in dwellings, especially for space heating. In this paper, we use a discrete choice experiment on space heating for both detached houses and apartments in France. In our choice experiment, we asked 1,820 respondents, both owners and tenants, to imagine that their current space heating system had broken down and that they had to choose a new one to replace it. A multinomial logit model was used to analyze the households preferences and willingness to pay for various space heating system attributes. We found that in general households prefer renewable sources and systems, but avoid wood. Preferences for familiar technologies have a considerable impact on the probabilities of choice and could represent a significant obstacle to the development of energy-efficient equipment. Willingness to pay for attributes that control energy consumption depends on thermal comfort preferences. The more cold-sensitive the household, the more willing it is to invest to renewable energy sources and to set temperature management.