Adoption and Cooperation Decisions in Sustainable Energy Infrastructure: Evidence from a Sequential Choice Experiment in Germany

Christian Oberst and Marjolein Harmsen - van Hout ()

No 14/2017, FCN Working Papers from E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN)

Abstract: In this paper, we propose and apply the design of a sequential discrete choice experiment to examine homeowner preferences regarding the adoption of micro-generation systems and willingness to cooperate in sustainable energy infrastructure. Adoption and cooperation decisions of private households in the energy sector are complex, interlinked, and assumably sequential. A common design with single choice tasks reflecting both adoption and cooperation decisions is assumed as cognitively too burdensome for survey respondents. The objective of the proposed sequential choice task design is twofold. Firstly, reducing complexity for respondents. Secondly, reflecting a step-wise decision process as is appropriate for the studied decisions. Our application from the energy sector is motivated by the need for innovative business models for non-industrial prosumers providing flexibility services in (local) distribution grids, due to an increasing amount of volatile and decentrally generated electricity. Results indicate that respondents reveal more pronounced preferences when dealing with their decision in sequential steps and that the task design has a lasting effect on respondents’ choices. By estimating latent class logit models, five consumer classes are identified and labeled by their distinguished motivational foci: costs (1), climate protection (2), self-supply (3), local reference (4), and other (5).

Keywords: Choice Experiment; Micro-generation; Renewable Energy; Community Energy; Energy Transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D12 Q42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fcn.eonerc.rwth-aachen.de/global/show_document.asp?id=aaaaaaaaabdbzah Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Adoption and Cooperation Decisions in Sustainable Energy Infrastructure: Evidence from a Sequential Choice Experiment in Germany (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:fcnwpa:2017_014

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FCN Working Papers from E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hendrik Schmitz ().