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Social Norms and Personalized Messaging to Promote Energy Conservation: evidence from a university residence hall

Last registered on September 13, 2017
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social Norms and Personalized Messaging to Promote Energy Conservation: evidence from a university residence hall
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002398
Initial registration date
September 12, 2017

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
September 13, 2017, 1:30 PM EDT

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
Midwest

Primary Investigator

Name
Mateus Nogueira Meirelles de Souza
Affiliation
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Erica Myers
PI Affiliation
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2017-08-28
End date
2018-08-31
Keywords
Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Energy costs in a campus dormitory setting are often not well understood or salient for students. They do not see billing or consumption information, making it difficult to translate use of particular energy services into costs. As a result, energy consumption is often “out of sight, out of mind” as students go through their busy days. Our research aims to enhance our understanding of how best to address these issues of saliency and understanding. Our project has two primary focuses. The first is to quantify the effects of information interventions on energy consumption. The second is to see whether those effects dissipate if the information is provided for a group of several rooms rather than for a single room. In other words, how does the level of aggregation for the information provided impact its effectiveness for reducing energy consumption? While we expect information to have the strongest effect at the room-level, individually metering rooms is costly. Therefore, understanding the impact of aggregation can help campus planners interested in using information to reduce consumption with their decisions about how to sub-meter dorms. We will conduct randomized control trials in a university residence hall, in order to test for the effect of social norms and meter aggregation on energy consumption. Our interventions will include three types of information: (1) weekly-level consumption, (2) tips for behavioral changes that could help reduce energy consumption, and (3) how the level of consumption compares to those of the average and to the most efficient neighbors. Social comparisons have been widely used by water and electric utilities because they have been shown to be remarkably cost effective, reducing consumption by 2-4\% for the relatively low cost of adding an additional section to the bill (e.g. Allcott 2011, Jessoe et al. 2017). In the context of university residence halls, previous studies have shown that these types of interventions can also be effective (e. g. Delmas and Lessem 2014). The effect of aggregation, however, has not yet been investigated. Furthermore, our study will be the first to focus on heating/cooling systems, which can account for over 40\% of energy consumption in the residential context (EIA, 2013).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Myers, Erica and Mateus Nogueira Meirelles de Souza. 2017. "Social Norms and Personalized Messaging to Promote Energy Conservation: evidence from a university residence hall." AEA RCT Registry. September 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2398-1.1
Former Citation
Myers, Erica and Mateus Nogueira Meirelles de Souza. 2017. "Social Norms and Personalized Messaging to Promote Energy Conservation: evidence from a university residence hall." AEA RCT Registry. September 13. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2398/history/206336
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
At a weekly basis, we will send out personalized emails to students who live in a specific residence hall. Those emails will include information about the resident's energy usage, as well as tips for energy conservation. With that, students are expected to reduce the heating/cooling energy usage.
Intervention (Hidden)
We will conduct randomized controlled trials in a university residence hall. We have access to high-frequency data (15-minute intervals) about the thermostat set-points in each bedroom of the building. With that data, we can generate graphs of weekly energy consumption to be provided via email to the residents. The graphs will include own energy usage, usage of the average neighbors, and usage of the 15th percentile most efficient neighbors. If a room had below average consumption, is it assigned a ``GOOD'' status. If usage was below the 15th percentile, the room is a ``GREAT'' status. And if usage was above average, then the room is rated as ``BELOW AVERAGE'' in terms of efficiency. A sample of the emails to be sent can be found in the appendix of the pre-analysis plan.
Intervention Start Date
2017-09-13
Intervention End Date
2018-05-11

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Thermostat set-points in each bedroom. Building energy usage.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This trial is designed such that we can have an unbiased estimate of the effects of our intervention on how the students behave in terms of thermostat settings. Two-thirds of the residents were assigned to the treatment group, who will receive the emails, while one-third of the residents will be pure control.
Experimental Design Details
The intervention will have 2 treatment arms. For the treatment arm A, we will provide bedroom-level energy usage information to the students, while for treatment arm B we will provide information aggregated at the suite-level (a suite is constituted of either 2 or 4 bedrooms, with a shared bathroom). By comparing outcomes in treatment A to those in the control group, we can estimate the effect of the social norms on residents' behavior with respect to the thermostats. By further comparing treatment A to treatment B, we can estimate how meter aggregation is relevant in this context. With a pre-intervention survey, we will assess which students are more likely to engage in energy-saving activities, by employing the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale. With a post-intervention survey, we will ask specifically about which energy-saving measures were the students engaged in. Sample emails and both surveys are included in the appendix of the pre-analysis plan.
Randomization Method
Done by a computer, with random number generator in Excel.
Randomization Unit
Suite-level (cluster of 2 or 4 bedrooms) randomization.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
120 suites (clusters of 2 or 4 bedrooms)
Sample size: planned number of observations
300 bedrooms.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 bedrooms in treatment arm A, 100 in treatment arm B, and 100 in control.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Simulated minimum detectable effect between 0.7 and 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit, with 80% power and at 5% significance level. Standard deviations ranging from 0.2 to 0.4. The MDE is about 1% of the sample average thermostat set-point.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
IRB Approval Date
2017-08-23
IRB Approval Number
18094
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
May 31, 2018, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
May 31, 2018, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
124 suites
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
320 rooms
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
42 suites in control, 44 in treatment A, and 38 in treatment B
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes
Public Data URL
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlTdEpDOFVTAhPgCEVDCRHbgKLzauQ

Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Program Files URL
https://github.com/mateusnmsouza/campus_energy/tree/master/MyersSouza_DataAndCode
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
We explore the mechanisms driving the effectiveness of a widely-used behavioral intervention that reduces energy consumption by repeatedly mailing social comparison-based home energy reports (HERs) to households. With a randomized controlled trial, we introduce HERs in a college residence, where tenants do not pay energy bills. Our results indicate that HERs induced almost no behavioral changes for heating demand, with precise estimates that allow us to rule out thermostat changes greater than 0.36 °F. To the extent that our findings can be extrapolated to other non-dormitory residential contexts, this suggests that behavioral channels, such as competitiveness, social norms, or moral suasion, may not motivate conservation in the absence of direct monetary incentives.
Citation
Myers, Erica, and Mateus Souza. "Social comparison nudges without monetary incentives: Evidence from home energy reports." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 101 (2020): 102315.
URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102315

Reports & Other Materials