Legislative proposals intend to require that manufacturers provide consumers with information on product life-cycle impacts. Yet, little is known about how consumers value such life-cycle information and who would be most sensitive to it. In this paper, we employ data from a demographically representative household survey among the adult population in Germany (N = 404), which elicits individuals’ preferences for energy-related attributes of refrigerators. Based on mixed logit analysis of a discrete choice experiment, we find that consumers, on average, dislike refrigerators with much higher embodied energy, value the highest energy class, and prefer refrigerators with longer warranty periods. Latent class models distinguish three consumer classes: 'price sensitives' (36%), 'quality seekers' (24%) and 'energy savers' (40%). 'Energy savers' are characterized by a higher environmental identity, energy literacy, and more patience than the other classes. Rating scales reveal that consumers consider life-cycle properties with direct, private benefits much more strongly than properties with mainly indirect, social benefits. Results from ordered logit models suggest that women with more patience and high environmental identity consider all life-cycle properties more strongly, while durability appears to also be valued more by low-income and more energy literate consumers. The results support ongoing policy initiatives that require the provision of life-cycle information and call for instruments to help consumers select appliances based on life-cycle costs.

Demand-side load management is considered a cost-efficient solution for accommodating growing shares of intermittent renewable electricity production. We employ a double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation (CV) experiment with 275 companies in the German commerce and services sector to estimate the effectiveness of a subsidy to make their ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration and freezing systems available for automated load management. Our estimates suggest that a given subsidy would unlock more flexible load at lower per MWh subsidy costs from air conditioning compared to ventilation. We find no effect of subsectors and the proposed frequency and duration of the load curtailments on the subsidy level. Subsidy levels in the center of the distribution yield specific subsidy costs that suggest that load management in the commerce and services sector may become a competitive option on the balancing market.

Diffusion of low-energy houses is an important part of energy and climate policy in the European Union (EU) and in individual EU countries. Key barriers to the adoption of low-energy houses include additional construction costs and uncertainty surrounding actual energy and cost savings. In this paper, we econometrically analyze determinants of low-energy house adoption, including time and risk preferences. We rely on original data from a large survey conducted among households in eight EU countries. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study of low-energy building adoption to rely on a demographically representative sample. Our set of covariates includes parameters of time and risk preferences that were elicited via state-of-the-art incentivized multiple price list experiments and via self-assessment scales. We find mixed results for the effects of time discounting on low-energy house adoption. Risk preferences do appear to matter: as risk proneness increases, so does the adoption of zero net or energy plus building (but not passive houses). Consistent with the low-cost hypothesis about environmental attitude and action, we find no results for environmental attitudes and social norms.