Moritz Loock
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Loock
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Moritz
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moritz.loock@unisg.ch
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+41 71 224 2586

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  • Publication
    The flexible prosumer: Measuring the willingness to co-create distributed flexibility
    (Elsevier Science, 2018-03)
    Kubli, Merla
    ;
    Loock, Moritz
    ;
    Wüstenhagen, Rolf
    Rising shares of fluctuating renewables increase the need for flexibility in the power market. At the same time, the emergence of the prosumer has created new opportunities for co-creation of distributed flexibility. As of yet, there is surprisingly little empirical analysis in terms of whether individuals are actually ready to co-create flexibility, and if so, under which conditions these resources can be mobilized by grid operators or electricity supply companies. We address this gap in the energy economics literature with three studies analyzing in total 7′216 individual decisions in a series of choice experiments with 902 study participants in three main domains of residential energy prosumption: (1) solar PV plus storage, (2) electric mobility, (3) heat pumps. We develop a novel measure of the prosumers’ willingness to co-create flexibility, and solicit their preferences for power supply contracts with varying levels of flexibility to derive implied discomfort costs. Our results indicate that current and potential electric car and solar PV users exhibit a higher willingness to co-create flexibility than heat pump users. Reaping the potential in those two domains requires taking the prosumer perspective into account when designing policy instruments and creating adequate business models.
    Type: journal article
    Journal: Energy policy
    Volume: 114
    URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517308704
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.12.044
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/100709
    Scopus© Citations 142
  • Publication
    Paying for flexibility - Increasing customer participation in demand response programs through rewards and punishments
    ( 2014-09-03)
    Gamma, Karoline
    ;
    Loock, Moritz
    ;
    Cometta, Claudio
    Steering electricity demand will be a crucial aspect for guaranteeing energy system reliability when the share of fluctuating electricity supply from renewable energy increases. Thus, demand response programs (DR) play an important role in future energy systems (Hancher, 2013). However, an open question evolves around the question of how to best help customers to accept these programs (Hancher, 2013; Steg & Vlek, 2009, EU, 2003; He, Keyaerts et al., 2013). It is commonly assumed that customers should be financially compensated when they participate in DR (Hancher, 2013; DOE, 2006). This translates into understanding "Paying for flexibility" as rewarding DR participants for the provided flexibility. However, "Paying for flexibility" could also be understood in the way that customers will have to pay if they still want to have the flexibility of using electricity whenever and wherever they want in the future. In this case, DR would - instead of rewarding customers for participation through financial compensation - punish those customers who do not participate through the introduction of service fees. Similar to rewards, punishments are a measure of operant conditioning to influence behaviour (Skinner, 1938) and they have effectively been used in various social systems, e.g. traffic fines for speeding. In the light of recent theories of decision-making that distinguish between heuristic or "automatic" and information-based or "deliberative" decision-making processes (Weber & Johnson, 2009), the paper at hand investigates the role of punishment and reward for consumer acceptance of DR. Due to the common assumption that rewards are the appropriate intervention to increase customer acceptance of DR (Hancher, 2013; DOE, 2006) which is in line with established views in environmental behaviour (Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012; Kazdin, 2009; Steg & Vlek, 2009; Iyer & Kashyap, 2007; Abrahamse et al. 2005; Geller, 1995), electric utilities are inclined to design DR based on rewards. However, in an experimental study with 151 undergraduate students in their role of energy consumers at a business school in Switzerland, we find that DR schemes based on punishments are more effective in increasing customer participation in the program compared to DR schemes based on rewards. These findings can be explained with prospect theory and loss aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984). We also find that there is no significant effect of punishments and rewards on customer loyalty towards the firm and attitude towards joining the DR. Thus, punishments are more effective in increasing customer participation without jeopardizing the loyalty of a company's customer base and the consumer's attitude towards joining DR. Additionally, they appear more efficient from an economic point of view as they result in lower costs (Balliet et al., 2011; Gächter, 2012): whereas the variable costs for reward-based DR increase with each participating customer, there are no variable costs for punishment-based DR. Based on our findings we encourage firms, policy makers and research not to be afraid of environmental fines and optimize the design of their customer intervention measures.?
    Type: presentation
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/86406