Critical Peak Rewards: Evidence from a Nationwide Demand Response Program

Louise Bernard, Robert Metcalfe and Andrew Schein

No 35485, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Demand flexibility at scale is likely to be an important part of the future energy system. This study evaluated the world’s first nationwide domestic and commercial demand flexibility program. We analyzed the policy using a natural field experiment, with a sample of 2.7 million, assigning 119,999 customers to a control group and the rest to receive randomized encouragement to sign up to the demand flexibility program. The program paid consumers to reduce their demand below a predicted baseline at peak demand across 16 events (i.e., when the system was stressed) during the Winter of 2023–24. Customers who opted into events reduced demand during events by 23.1% among compliers, at an average cost for the system operator of £2,325 per MWh. The adoption of solar panels and batteries, heat pumps, and EVs all increased demand response.

JEL-codes: Q40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
Note: EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35485.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:35485

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35485
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().