"Show Me the Energy Costs": Short and Long-term Energy Cost Disclosure Effects on Willingness-to-pay for Residential Energy Efficiency

Imperfect information on future energy costs can lower the demand for more en-ergy efficient technologies, with clear implications for energy supply, emissions and climate change. 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 will-ingness-to-pay for energy efficiency improvements is small and marginally sig-nificant. While bimonthly energy cost information displayed in monetary terms has no effect on the valuation of energy efficiency, annual monetary energy cost information led to a significant increase. This is the first paper to compare short and long-term point of sale energy cost information for household property deci-sions. There are clear implications for labelling policy for properties-framing energy consumption according to long-term monetary cost increases the demand for energy efficiency.