Quantifying the Impacts of Timebased Rates, Enabling Technology, and Other Treatments in Consumer Behavior Studies: Protocols and Guidelines
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
This report offers guidelines and protocols for measuring the effects of time-based rates, enabling technology, and various other treatments on customers’ levels and patterns of electricity usage. Although the focus is on evaluating consumer behavior studies (CBS) that involve field trials and pilots, the methods can be extended to assessing the large-scale programs that may follow. CBSs are undertaken to resolve uncertainties and ambiguities about how consumers respond to inducements to modify their electricity demand. Those inducements include price structures; feedback and information; and enabling technologies embedded in programs such as: critical peak, time-of use, real-time pricing; peak time rebate or critical peak rebate; home energy reports and in-home displays; and all manner of device controls for appliances and plug loads. Although the focus of this report is on consumer studies—where the subjects are households—the behavioral sciences principles discussed and many of the methods recommended apply equally to studying commercial and industrial customer electricity demand.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); USDOE Office of Electricity (OE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1170750
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-6301E
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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