While many studies find that consumers consistently undervalue fuel costs when making a new car purchase, whether this information failure can be corrected through an intervention remains unclear. This paper combines the results of two nationwide experiments conducted in the Republic of Ireland-an online discrete choice experiment and a showroom randomized controlled trial which test the provision of energy cost and CO2 information on car choices. Findings from the online experiment suggest that providing monetary energy cost information, particularly when it is framed over longer time horizons increases the probabilty of selecting a battery electric vehicle (BEV). Field trial findings however do not show an effect of information provision at the point of vehicle sale. This highlights the difficutly in influencing real-world purchases, and the importance of source and timing in information provision.

With buildings accounting for roughly 40% of energy consumption in the US and Europe, energy efficiency upgrades will be central in meeting climate targets. Based on the hypothesis that there is imperfect information regarding the cost-saving implications of efficiency improvements, we add property-specific energy cost labels to sales advertisements in a randomized controlled trial covering the entire Irish housing market. This is the first energy framing field trial for property, the household’s largest energy consuming investment and the household technology which likely has the highest variation in energy consumption due to heterogeneity in efficiency and size. Our analysis of over 31,000 transacted properties finds strong evidence that energy cost forecasts change homebuyer behaviour, with the energy efficiency premium increasing by 0.7 percentage points in treatment counties. We also find that more energy efficient properties sell faster and, for the first time, show that treatment further shortened this time-to-sell. While a major departure from existing property labelling policy, these results suggest that framing property energy efficiency according to cost implications rather than kilowatt-hours increases the demand for energy efficiency.

It has been shown that consumers often underinvest in energy efficiency despite net benefits over the longer term. One possible explanation is that they do not properly understand energy information when provided in physical units, as in most energy labels. Prior studies have investigated the effect of reframing energy information into monetary units. Outcomes are mixed, and it is unclear whether this is due to the use of different products, methodologies or to studies being conducted in countries with different energy prices and labelling standards. This paper overcomes this ambiguity by testing the effect of providing monetary energy information using the same experiment in a multi-country setting. Results show that the intervention’s effectiveness varies considerably across countries. Moreover, they highlight the presence of within-country heterogeneities based on demographic characteristics, with monetary information being more effective for high-usage households but seemingly crowding out the motivation of those whose purchasing decisions depend on environmental considerations.

This paper aims to examine the role of citizen investment in scaling up renewable generation through participating or investing in social innovation in energy. It presents an explorative study demonstrating results of large-scale surveys of the general public across twelve countries (11 European plus the USA), representing the views of over 10,000 individuals. These surveys focus on three types of innovative energy business models, namely: energy cooperatives, crowdfunding and peer-to-peer platforms. In particular, we study the socioeconomic, demographic and attitudinal attributes of self-reported early participants in similar energy organizations, and also separately among those who express an unwillingness to participate in the above business models. The findings suggest that factors such as age, education, gender, risk preferences, previous general investment experience and trust in the carbon saving claims of organizations are important in explaining both self-reported previous and future participation in energy initiatives.

Economies are struggling to achieve a low-carbon transition while also fostering increased digitalisation. EU-level targets for renewable generation, emissions reduction and energy efficiency present a unique challenge for Ireland which features substantial intermittent renewable generation, limited district heating and data centres forecast to consume 37% of national electricity demand by 2028. This study quantifies the key private and public benefits associated with large-scale adoption of energy efficiency technology for data centre cooling. It considers technology that provides cooling to data centres, surplus hot water supply and electricity storage. A unique plant-level model informs a national forecast of data centre energy savings and estimates of hot water supply for use in district heating. National public benefits of adoption are quantified using a power systems model (ENGINE) of the Irish transmission system, subject to 2030 climate policy constraints. Results show that technology adoption could lower sectoral energy use by 26% and supply 12.40 TWh of hot water for a 4th generation district heating network. Technology adoption could reduce renewable electricity generation requirements by 6.92% and lower system-wide emissions by 3%. Results highlight the potential for technology adoption to deliver multiple benefits to private and public stakeholders.

Time preferences are considered a leading cause of the energy efficiency gap. We test two cognition-based mechanisms (concentration bias and underestimation bias) which are distinct from time preferences but can produce identical behaviour when costs are paid upfront and benefits are spread over time. We use an experiment that measures willingness-to-pay for an improvement in fuel economy to test the explanatory power of these mechanisms. The sample is large, nationally representative and comprised only of car buyers (n = 2368). The experiment varies between-subjects (i) the payment schedule for the fuel economy improvement, and (ii) the temporal framing of its monetary benefit. We combine the payment schedules and the benefit frames so that the pattern of results predicted by time preferences differs from the pattern predicted by cognitive mechanisms. Results support the preregistered hypotheses: willingness-to-pay increases as the payment schedule becomes more dispersed across time and decreases when the benefit is presented as more disaggregated (i.e. a monthly saving instead of annual or multi-year saving). The findings are consistent with the predictions of the two cognitive mechanisms, which may explain part of the energy-efficiency gap currently attributed to pure time preference.

Given the longevity of investments in energy-consuming products (such as household appliances, vehicles, and properties), underinvestment in energy efficiency can have long-lasting negative economic and environmental consequences. Previous research has indicated that underinvestment may be due to imperfect information in relation to the long-term benefits of investing in energy efficiency. This paper presents the results of a cluster randomised controlled trial examining an intervention which aims to overcome this information deficit by providing long-term energy cost information on appliances in an electrical retail chain in Ireland. Two treatments are considered: a label showing 10-year energy cost information based on typical usage for four appliance categories (fridge freezers, dishwashers, washing machines, and tumble dryers); and a second treatment which supplements this label with a QR code where consumers can gain personalised cost estimates based on their expected appliance usage. Results indicate that neither of the treatments resulted in an increase in the average energy efficiency of appliances sold. Also, engagement of customers with the QR code was extremely low. Given that the newly designed EU energy labels incorporate QR codes for personalisation, this low usage suggests that this element of the new labels may be ineffective in increasing the uptake of energy efficiency. Finally, a customer survey suggests that while the treatment increased the stated importance of energy efficiency in decision-making, this did not translate into an increase in efficiency of products purchased, i.e., stated preferences for energy efficiency did not translate into revealed purchasing preferences.

In recent years, energy initiatives (such as energy cooperatives) have been expanding across European countries to meet the increasing demand for innovative solutions to renewable energy generation and distribution. However, research exploring citizens' acceptance of these new business models remains scarce, especially from the perspective of citizen investors. In this paper, we examine citizens' willingness to invest in energy projects through energy cooperatives and energy crowdfunding platforms. Using a discrete choice experiment with a sample of approximately 2000 EU citizens, we contribute to the growing literature on citizen investment in the energy sector by comparing citizens' stated engagement across ten European countries, many of which have not previously been examined in the literature. Our results provide evidence that citizens are willing to invest in renewable energy through energy cooperatives or crowdfunders. Investment returns and environmental benefits are important factors considered in making investment decisions, demonstrating both the financial and nonfinancial motivations of citizen renewable investors. The importance of several governance attributes, such as minimum amount of investment or the type of issuers in the case of civic crowdfunding, are also highlighted. Our findings also suggest the existence of a moderate level of preference heterogeneity regarding, e.g., carbon emission reductions, project location and minimum investment across different surveyed countries and different social groups (e.g., age, prior experience with energy initiatives) for both business models, which provides considerable implications for the generalisability of energy initiatives to different populations.

Imperfect information on future energy costs can lead households to underestimate the monetary savings of more energy efficient technologies, with implications for future energy supply, emissions and the climate. These hypotheses are explored using a randomised discrete choice experiment for property rental decisions. Results show that when energy consumption is expressed in physical units (as per the current EU labels) the willingness-to-pay for energy efficiency improvements is small and marginally significant. While bimonthly energy cost information has no effect on the valuation of energy efficiency, annual monetary energy cost information leads to a significant increase. This is the first paper to compare short and long-term point of sale energy cost information for household property decisions. There are clear implications for labelling policy for properties-framing energy consumption according to long-term monetary cost increases the demand for energy efficiency.

Although the airline sector contributes to just 3% of the world's CO2 emissions, air travel is a highly CO2-intensive activity. Unlike other energy-related household decisions, there is little standardised, comparable, regulated information available to consumers regarding the environmental impacts of different airlines. Imperfect information in this market therefore appears very likely. This paper presents the results of a discrete choice experiment which uses a nationally representative sample of 209 participants in Ireland to explore how point-of-sale flight emission labelling influences choice. There are two keys findings: first, a comparative CO2 label, similar to existing EU colour-coded labels (appliances, for example), leads to a shift to lower emission flight choices, even when they cost more; second, the effect is very large: on average, households are willing to pay €77 more for each tonne of CO2 reduced. Unlike other household energy efficiency decisions (appliances, cars and buildings, for example), choosing more energy efficient flights has no private monetary return in the form of lower future energy bills. It therefore represents a purer test of willingness to pay for a public good (a low CO2 environment). Results provide evidence to support policy recommendations of emission labelling in the short-run and environmental education in the long-run.

Many economic decisions rely on a fast, intuitive system of numerical cognition. When trying to judge the sum of a sequence of numbers, this system produces non-random errors: on average, it underestimates. This underestimation bias is thought to be caused by a compressive scaling of numbers when they are encoded internally. We present two preregistered, incentive-compatible experiments that tested the economic relevance of the underestimation bias. We varied the economic frame of sequences to be summed and deployed both judgment and forced-choice elicitation methods. Experiment 1 (n = 104) showed significant underestimation in the judgment task, with an overall mean bias of approximately -6%. Experiment 2 (n = 501) recorded persistent underestimation bias in both judgment and forced-choice tasks. Clear learning effects imply the effect size likely marks a lower bound. These findings have implications for modelling the cognitive foundations of economic preferences. They also provide insight into how firms' pricing structures can exacerbate biases, causing economic loss.

A number of microeconomic choice models are currently applied to demonstrate systematic biases in energy consumer behavior. The models highlight the hidden potential of energy savings from policies that target the so-called behavioral anomalies. Nevertheless, whether these patterns are repeatable or not is not clear, because the efforts to determine the transferability or generalizability of these models are practically nonexistent. This paper uses a unique collection of empirical data from five EU countries collected within the CONSEED project to refine and develop further the standard consumer decision model, validate it for policy purposes, and elaborate on its transferability between countries. The pooled samples allow for a more reliable investigation of the relative importance of the factors influencing consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards energy investment decisions. Based on the statistical tests conducted to evaluate the “transferability” of the pooled models (i.e., the possibility of creating a “universal” model of EE from the pooled model), it can be argued that the models are transferable in specific cases since attitudinal factors and demographic characteristics play a significant role. Although the pooled models are validated, any extrapolation of the above-mentioned findings to specific populations in terms of “space” (i.e., country) and “target” (e.g., sectors and technologies) should be approached with caution from a policy perspective.

Ireland's Climate Action Plan aims upgrade 500,000 homes to B2 Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) standard by 2030. Evidence of an Energy Performance Gap, where actual energy use differs from the EPC, could undermine progress towards such targets. This paper studies the energy performance gap for a general housing sample (n = 9923) over multiple years. It provides a novel comparison between whole-home energy use (electricity and gas) that accounts for fuel switching and removes potential rebound effects by excluding households that may have changed their behaviour following a retrofit. Results suggest that actual energy use is unresponsive to the EPC, with a range of 457 kWh/year observed across EPC-level averages for the entire sample. This difference equated to less than 5% of the sample average annual energy use observed. The Energy Performance Gap range features an average deficit of 17% below theoretical energy use. The least energy efficient dwellings feature an average difference ranging from - 15 to - 56% of the relevant EPC. Conversely, energy efficient houses display higher-than-theoretical energy use, with average surpluses ranging from 39 to 54% of the relevant EPC. Results sound a note of caution for policymakers that rely on a theoretical EPC to deliver real energy savings. Future EPCs could be improved by incorporating historical household energy usage to help improve models.

The transport sector is a key contributor of global greenhouse gas emissions and electric vehicles have become a focus in striving to achieve decarbonisation and efficiency in the sector. This study uses a stated preference methodology, specifically choice experiments, to investigate the attitudes and preferences of potential buyers for a number of technical, environmental and policy attributes of electric vehicles in Ireland. We specifically focus on whether learning through provision of information and a brief vehicle experience affects preferences and welfare measures. Previous studies have examined the role of lengthy electric vehicle demonstration trials, for example 3 month trials, on preferences. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by considering the role of much shorter scale experience (minutes rather than months) on attitudes which more closely represents the experience that a potential purchaser will have at the point of investment. Using random parameter models, our results show that people are willing to pay more for certain technical and environmental features of electric vehicles, however, policy measures such as preferential parking rates are seen to have a non-significant effect on utility of participants. The learning process increases the significance of the environmental component, and produces significantly higher willingness to pay for increased battery range and vehicle size.

Buildings in the EU are responsible for 40% of energy use, with approximately 75% of buildings classed as energy inefficient. Many energy efficiency technologies have failed to deliver on the promised savings. This paper measures the extent to which residential dwelling retrofit delivers real energy savings in Ireland using a unique dataset of whole-home energy use (n = 8,572 households) over a two-year period. It is one of the largest studies of retrofit using whole-home energy data for a general housing sample, who do not disproportionately experience fuel poverty. It uses whole-home energy data to capture potential fuel switching induced by retrofit. Finally, this study addresses concerns regarding self-selection issues associated with the decision to undergo a retrofit by comparing with a second control group of homes that received a retrofit prior to the observation period. Results following a generalised difference-in-difference methodology indicate that retrofits reduce energy use by 1,091 kWh/year, on average. However, the magnitude of savings depends on the measures installed. Further analysis suggests that retrofits represent better value for money when factoring in actual changes in energy use. This study highlights possible unintended consequences of retrofit policies that may hinder progress towards national energy efficiency targets.

This paper examines students' perspectives on the main transitional challenges experienced when commencing higher education. It explores which students are most affected by the transition and is the first paper to provide an overview of student recommendations to help improve the transition in an Irish context. The study involves large-scale surveys and focus groups across four higher education institutions and explores a range of transitional challenges (including academic, social and course-specific aspects). Over 1,100 student suggestions to improve transition are analysed and many of these recommendations could be easily implemented beyond Ireland. Ten overall recommendations are made which include, among others, specific supports for mature students and those with longer commuting distances, course-specific introductory skills modules to be given by current students, a first year 'starter' pack with course-specific orientation materials, and the introduction of a student-shadowing programme for prospective students.

Data centres are a key infrastructure for the global digital economy, helping enable the EU “Digital Decade” by 2030. In 2015, data centres were estimated to consume 2.5% of EU electricity demand. In Ireland, the concentrated presence of data centres could consume 37% of national electricity demand by 2028. The uncertainty of data centre facility-level energy efficiency paired with the need to achieve a low-carbon economy pose significant challenge for generation and transmission network planning. This is the first paper to apply a model of technology diffusion with a national forecast of changes in Irish data centre electricity demand through more efficient liquid cooling. The methodology serves as a technology-agnostic resource for practitioners performing forecasts under uncertainty with limited information. Results suggest that technology adoption could lower national electricity demand by 0.81% if adopted by new plant from 2019 to 2028. Savings rise to 3.16% over the same period if adopted by new and existing data centres. Adoption would also lower related emissions by 4.70% and 23.04% over the same period across both scenarios, respectively. Results highlight substantial potential electricity and associated emissions savings available in the sector and suggest policy options to support a transition towards a low-carbon economy.