Time-of-Use Electricity Pricing and Residential Low-carbon Energy Technology Adoption

Abstract:
This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the correlation between Time-Of-Use (TOU) electricity pricing and the adoption of energy efficient appliances and solar panels. We use household-level data in Phoenix, Arizona from an appliance saturation survey of about 16,000 customers conducted by a major electric utility. Our empirical results show that TOU consumers are associated with 27% higher likelihood to install solar panels but not more likely to adopt energy-efficient air conditioning based on the propensity score matching and coarsened exact matching methods. The findings highlight that policy makers could combine TOU and solar panels when implementing educational programs or when giving out financial incentives to consumers. Our results imply that TOU is associated with a similar impact of the incentive offered by $2,070~$10,472 tax credits or rebates on solar adoption.