Estimating what US residential customers are willing to pay for resilience to large electricity outages of long duration

Sunhee Baik (), Alexander L. Davis, Jun Woo Park, Selin Sirinterlikci and M. Granger Morgan
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Sunhee Baik: Carnegie Mellon University
Alexander L. Davis: Carnegie Mellon University
Jun Woo Park: Carnegie Mellon University
Selin Sirinterlikci: General Motors
M. Granger Morgan: Carnegie Mellon University

Nature Energy, 2020, vol. 5, issue 3, 250-258

Abstract: Abstract Climate-induced extreme weather events, as well as other natural and human-caused disasters, have the potential to increase the duration and frequency of large power outages. Resilience, in the form of supplying a small amount of power to homes and communities, can mitigate outage consequences by sustaining critical electricity-dependent services. Public decisions about investing in resilience depend, in part, on how much residential customers value those critical services. Here we develop a method to estimate residential willingness-to-pay for back-up electricity services in the event of a large 10-day blackout during very cold winter weather, and then survey a sample of 483 residential customers across northeast USA using that method. Respondents were willing to pay US$1.7–2.3 kWh–1 to sustain private demands and US$19–29 day–1 to support their communities. Previous experience with long-duration outages and the framing of the cause of the outage (natural or human-caused) did not affect willingness-to-pay.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-0581-1

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