How much shift in demand? Findings from a field experiment in Germany

摘要

In this paper we evaluate the effects of time of use (TOU) pricingin a field experiment in Germany on residential peak andoff-peak demand, which involves more than 1,500 householdsin the TOU treatment and the control group. The TOU experimentlasted for six months and the ratio of peak-to offpeak prices was 177 %. Results from econometric differencein-difference analyses suggest that TOU pricing correspondsto average percentage reductions in peak-demand of 6 % to7 %, for a household in the TOU treatment group. In comparison,the TOU tariff was not found to affect off-peak demand.Households mainly respond to TOU tariffs by shaving peakdemand, but not by shifting demand from peak periods to offpeakperiods. Thus, TOU pricing also lowers total electricityuse. Our findings further suggest that there is no difference inthe effects of TOU pricing between weekdays and weekends.Finally, we find no differences in the effectiveness of TOU pricingover time.