To accelerate the transition in the heating sector, barriers and drivers need to be addressed. The analysis of this paper relies on an online survey in the residential sector and investigates influencing factors and perceptions of heating options in eleven EU member states. Further, it employs a case study in the industrial sector. The results reveal that in the residential sector ratings, as well as decisions to adopt heat pumps and district heating, are primarily influenced by technical or financial constraints, followed by self-centered aspects, trust, attitudes and personal interests. Conversely, the industrial sector is predominantly driven by economic considerations, regulations, and corporate strategies.@en

Since heating-related energy consumption is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for a large part of domestic energy use in Europe, reducing heating-related energy consumption has great potential to reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines which factors determine people's intention to decrease heating-related energy usage, specifically lowering the temperature in winter. It was part of a larger European project focused on promoting energy reduction. This study presents a smaller-scale model tested among 363 individuals from five pilot countries, i.e., Belgium (n = 58), Croatia (n = 82), Germany (n = 105), Greece (n = 33), and Portugal (n = 85). We applied three robust theoretical frameworks: the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Value Belief Norm Theory, and the Prototype Willingness Model. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to ensure construct validity, followed by a structural equation model. Our findings suggest that willingness (from the Prototype Willingness Model) is the most important predictor in explaining someone’s intention to reduce heating-related energy consumption. Additionally, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms, and attitudes (part of Theory of Planned Behaviour) also play an important role in predicting the intention to reduce energy consumption. Lastly, personal moral norms (from the Value Belief Norm Theory) have a significant impact, but their effect is moderate compared to the other predictors.

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Households equipped with flexible technologies, such as electric vehicles, can support the energy transition by shifting electricity consumption to times of high renewable supply and by preventing consumption peaks that cannot be covered by existing grid and generation infrastructure. Demand response services support households in performing these consumption shifts. Households ask for specifications of services that stand partly in contrast to each other. For instance, while electric vehicle owners tend to insist on retaining control over their charging, others prefer data-driven automation to minimize their active involvement. Recent studies exploring the acceptance of demand response services focused either solely on specific household groups (e.g. electric vehicle users) or on a broad representative sample without further differentiation. Complementarily to fill this gap, we examine differences in preferences for contrasting service designs between household groups. Specifically, we consider: (i) the type of flexible technology to which demand response is applied, and (ii) the adoption level, i.e., whether the households plan to, or currently own, a flexible technology. In a vignette survey, we examine the preferences towards four contrasting service designs with German households that either own or have expressed interest in acquiring a flexible technology (n = 962). Our results show that the preferences do not fundamentally differ between the kind of flexible technology and adoption level. Generally, participants prefer automated demand response services with data sharing. The added value of realizing energy cost savings effectively and efficiently stands out as the main driver for the diffusion of demand response services, outweighing data privacy concerns. Contrary to our expectations, electric vehicle owners did not show a special need for control and households not yet owning flexible technologies did not express a need for little effort. We discuss the implications of our findings for demand response service providers and outline pathways of future research in this domain.

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Aligning prosumers' electricity consumption to the availability of self-generated electricity decreases CO₂ emissions and costs. Nudges are proposed as one behavioral intervention to orchestrate such changes. At the same time, fragmented findings in the literature make it challenging to identify suitable behavioral interventions for specific households and contexts - specifically for optimizing self-consumption. We test three sequentially applied interventions (feedback, benchmark, and default) delivered by digital tools in a field experiment with 111 German households with rooftop-photovoltaics. The experiment design with a control-group, baseline measurements, and high-frequency smart-meter-data allows us to examine the causal effects of each intervention for increasing self-consumption. While feedback and benchmark deliver small self-consumption increases (3–4 percent), the smart changing default leads to a 16 percent increase for active participants. In general, households with controllable electric vehicles show stronger effects than those without. For upscaling behavioral interventions for other prosumers, we recommend interventions that require little interaction and energy literacy because even the self-selected, motivated sample rarely interacted with the digital tools.

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With the diffusion of prosumerism, where households act both as producers and consumers of energy, policy makers must strike a balance between encouraging microgeneration and regulating this new prosumer segment on the energy market. However, effective policy implementation depends on prosumers’ behavioural reactions. This paper provides evidence on the interplay between digital real-time information and regulation of self-consumption for rooftop photovoltaics (PV) in Croatia. Croatian households that produce more annual electricity than they consume are automatically re-classified as renewable traders, which means additional administrative duties and less favorable tax treatment. This creates perverse incentives to reduce PV generation or increase energy consumption by year-end. We document the behavioural reactions to this policy design, indicating that energy production and consumption are highly elastic regarding regulatory incentives, but only if these incentives are made transparent and accessible with timely information. We collected two survey waves (n = 54 and n = 80) and smart meter data (n = 39), which illustrate the behavioural reaction before and after year-end. According to the survey wave before year-end, almost half of the participants considered curtailing their PV output. According to the smart meter data, a sizable share did indeed take action by shutting down PV production or by powering additional devices to reduce the surplus near year-end. In a second survey wave in the new year, prosumers provide ex-post insights on the specific measures taken to reduce surplus. We discuss research insights regarding the transparency and control offered by metering feedback, and how this can influence household behaviour within regulatory frameworks.@en

Prosumers with photovoltaic systems can reduce their electricity expenses by increasing their consumption of self-generated electricity. This makes them more resilient to price shocks, like the 2022 European energy crisis. We evaluate how prosumers adapt their consumption behavior in response to such political uncertainty and increasing electricity prices. The collected survey and smart meter data allow us to evaluate the perceived self-reported and measured impact on self-consumption.Saving intentions due to the energy crisis are more clearly displayed by the survey than by the measured self-consumption. While solar radiation predominantly explains self-consumption changes, Google searches on electricity-related topics have limited explanatory power. However, considering time lags and the interaction with solar radiation leads to more nuanced insights on the effect of Google searches. Depending on the level of solar radiation, the effect of Google searches ranges from decreasing the daily self-consumption by 26.45 Wh to increasing it by 69.45 Wh. @en

Smart metering and home energy management systems (HEMS) support households with roof-top photovoltaic (PV) to optimize self-consumption. These HEMS can convey subtle guidance for consumption shifts that address intuitive consumption routines. However, the efficacy of the guidance depends on the regulation of self-consumption. This presentation provides experimental evidence on the interplay between both for the case of Croatia, where households that produce more electricity than they consume over the year are automatically re-classified as renewable traders and have additional administrative duties, as well as less favorable tax treatment. This creates perverse incentives to reduce PV generation or increase energy consumption. We document strong behavioral reactions within a real-life field experiment, which was conducted as part of the larger Horizon 2020 project NUDGE. The project collected both survey and smart meter data, which allows for a comprehensive picture of the behavioral reaction. According to the survey wave before the end of the year, almost half of the participants considered curtailing their PV output. According to the smart meter data, a sizable share did indeed take action by shutting down production or by powering additional devices to reduce the surplus near the end of the calendar year. In the final survey wave, prosumers provide ex-post insights on the specific measures taken to reduce surplus. Finally, we discuss insights from the experiment regarding the transparency and control offered by the HEMS, as well as how this can influence household behavior regarding the regulatory framework.@en