Northwest home buyers' fuel and energy-efficiency preferences.

摘要

This study for the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) investigated home buyers' heating fuel and energy-efficiency preferences, and the influence of incentives on their choices. The study was conducted in four regions of Washington State: Spokane and Pierce Counties, where the Model Conservation Standards (MCS) for new electrically heated homes have been adopted as local code, and King and Clark Counties, where the MCS has been implemented only through a voluntary marketing program. The results of this study provide useful information about energy-efficiency, space heating fuel type, and alternative incentive programs. They provide initial evidence that fuel-specific energy-efficiency standards may significantly affect the shares of different heating fuels in the new home market. They also suggest that cash rebates and utility rate incentives may have a modest effect on the shares for different heating fuels. Because these results are based on a technique relying on hypothetical choices and because they reflect only four metropolitan areas, further study must be conducted to determine whether the results apply to other locations and whether other analytic approaches produce similar findings. 3 refs.