Encouraging households with PV panels to consume more of their self-generated electricity

Last registered on March 26, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Encouraging households with PV panels to consume more of their self-generated electricity
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015605
Initial registration date
March 20, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 26, 2025, 8:57 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Jesper Akesson
Affiliation
The Behaviouralist
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Robert Metcalfe
PI Affiliation
Columbia University
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PI Name
Ondrej Kacha
PI Affiliation
The Behaviouralist
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-01-01
End date
2025-10-30
Keywords
Behavior, Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
demand flexibility, solar panels, behaviour change, habits
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Households with installed solar panels have significant potential to increase residential demand flexibility. By generating their own electricity, solar-powered households can reduce their dependence on the grid. However, they also pose a challenge - that is they sell excess solar power back to the grid during off-peak hours (typically between 10am - 4pm on week days) when electricity supply already exceeds demand. This surplus can negatively impact grid stability. A key way to mitigate this risk is to increase the capability and motivation of households to increase the self-consumption of their solar power during off-peak periods.

The goal of this study is to test whether providing households with a "solar efficiency score" (i.e., a comparison of self-consumed solar energy vs. solar energy fed to the grid) can increase their self-consumption of solar energy..
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Akesson, Jesper, Ondrej Kacha and Robert Metcalfe. 2025. "Encouraging households with PV panels to consume more of their self-generated electricity." AEA RCT Registry. March 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15605-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2025-04-08
Intervention End Date
2025-07-08

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
energy consumption, energy feed-in
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
energy feed-in: monthly amount of self-generated energy that a household feeds back to the grid, as opposed to consuming it

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomise approximately 25,000 customers into two trial groups (5,000 customers in control and 20,000 customers in treatment group). Customers in the treatment group receive a behavioural email which encourages them to view their solar efficiency score, and to sign up for a newsletter with tips to improve their solar efficiency. The aim is to reach at least 5,000 newsletter sign ups. If the sign-up target is not reached, the energy supplier will seek to increase the sample size so that the target is reached.

The behavioural email will be sent to customers in April 2025. The email will contain a link to a website that calculates a solar efficiency score based on the number of installed solar panels (inputted manually by a consumer) and last month’s energy feed-in data (loaded automatically for each user). Finally, upon presentation of the solar efficiency score on the website, customers will be given an option to sign up for three emails sent over the next three months that contain tips to improve their solar efficiency score.

Using customers' daily solar feed in and hourly energy usage data for three months before and six months after the intervention, we will evaluate the impact of viewing solar efficiency score and receiving emails with tips on solar energy feed-in and energy consumption (peak, offpeak, and overall). The effect of this campaign will be tested using an instrumental variable regression. We use the difference in enrollment caused by our treatment allocation as an instrument to understand the causal impact of the campaign on solar feed-in and energy consumption.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Household
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
25,000 households
Sample size: planned number of observations
25,000 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
5,000 households control, 20,000 households treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We have requested pre-trial consumption and feed-in data from the energy provider so that we can determine the variance in energy feed-in and consumption - parameters needed to conduct a power analysis for instrumental variable regression. We will update the power analyses for this objective once the data has been received.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Heartland IRB
IRB Approval Date
2024-08-20
IRB Approval Number
082024-593
Analysis Plan