Is our everyday comfort for sale? Preferences for demand management on the electricity market

摘要

In a European perspective, the electricity markets have been experiencing major changes viaderegulation, new technologies and changes in the production mix. Together with the daily andseasonal peak hours on the demand side, the changing markets put pressure on increased flexibility tohandle and sustain balance in the grid systems. This paper focuses on the demand side and analyzespreferences related to demand management of Swedish households energy use. Preferences areanalyzed within the framework of choice experiments and people are faced with hypotheticalelectricity contracts. The respondents reveal their preferences for attributes related to external controlof heating, household electricity and information dissemination (integrity). The results show thatpeople put a substantial value on not being controlled, illustrated by compensations up to thousands ofSEK for accepting a contract characterized by external control of energy use in different dimensions.In addition, the results show that household composition, age, gender and income may play a role forthe perceived discomfort from the external control and information dissemination.