Centralschweizerische Kraftwerke (CKW) & Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE)
Can a behavioural science informed electricity bill design effectively reduce the energy consumption of Swiss SMEs?
Public Organisation | Energy Efficiency | Invoice Re-design | Randomised-Controlled Trial
Context
This project was kicked off as a result of Affective’s initiative supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) testing and evaluating innovative approaches to increase the energy efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using behavioural insights. It is an innovative pilot experiment emerging from the behavioural intervention catalogue in light of the Swiss energy strategy 2050.
Challenge
Can a behavioural science informed electricity bill design effectively reduce the energy consumption of Swiss SMEs?
The challenge was to create and test a newly designed energy bill for SME customers of CKW. Following the promising results of scientific studies with private households in the US (see among others Allcott et al. 2011), Affective’s team ran a world’s first replication of the study with redesigned electricity bills for commercial customers with a sample of 400+ Swiss SMEs.
The ultimate aim was to increase energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption and raise awareness for renewable energies in Swiss SMEs by providing new or differently presented information on electricity bills.
Approach
Firstly, Affective conducted desk research on relevant behavioural insights and best practice studies around the re-design of energy bills, primarily from contexts and countries similar to Switzerland.
Secondly, based on the gathered insights, the project team developed new energy bill designs in an iterative process. This incorporated selected behavioural concepts and principles, resulting in three different bill versions to be tested.
Thirdly, the experimental design was finalised and integrated into the existing invoicing processes, including the set-up of the test sample (400+ Swiss SMEs) and experimental setup in the CKW system.
Fourthly, over an evaluation period of 6 months, the energy consumption of intervention groups vs. control groups was measured across three selected industries with the help of smart meters.
Fifthly, Affective conducted a thorough analysis of the gathered data, interpreted the results and provided actionable recommendations for CKW and beyond.
The project results are currently in the process of being published. Information is available upon request.
Concepts
Together with the project team at CKW, representing various functions from sustainability management to invoicing to data management, we applied several behavioural science concepts and methods in this project. Further, we integrated behavioural science concepts into the letter design. Selected concepts include among others:
Social Norms
Feedback
Framing
Labelling
Gamification
Reminders
Deliverables
The main result of this project were three new versions of behavioural-science-informed energy bills for SME customers of CKW (example 1). In addition, Affective led the roll-out, data collection and analysis of the experiment, which tested the impact of the new designs. Results are currently being prepared for publication and available upon requested.
Example 1: Energy Bill before and after intervention
Reference
“Affective combined relevant scientific insights with practical methods, good stakeholder management and a truly innovative and fun mindset. The collaboration with the team was very effective and enjoyable.”
Bettina Putzi, Senior Sustainability Manager, CKW