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Implications of customer value perceptions for the design of electricity efficiency services in times of smart metering

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Abstract

Smart meters are the backbone of modern electricity metering and an important enabler of reaching energy efficiency targets. The implementation of new metering infrastructure is, however, making little progress and is often focused on technical aspects only. Additionally, existing smart metering information systems do not yet exploit the possibilities to optimally support customers in their electricity savings activities. Knowing customer preferences is absolutely essential for the effectiveness of energy efficiency measures and, as a consequence, for realizing the economic value of smart metering technology. The presented research contributes to the field by identifying customer value perceptions concerning new smart meter services in the retail electricity market in Switzerland. Founded on a choice-based conjoint analysis with a data sample of more than 1500 respondents from three Swiss regions, five customer segments with different preferences are identified. With the exception of the comfort-oriented customer segment, the other four segments are comprised of customers who are willing (1) to pay for smart meter services and (2) to change their behavior to save electricity. Based on the identified customer value perceptions, implications for the design of smart meter-based energy efficiency services are elaborated.

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Notes

  1. The amount of the basic fee per month differs significantly between the attributes, while the different tariff options themselves sum always up to the same amount for a standard load profile customer. A customer can therefore only be better off with a given tariff model, if he is willing to change his behavior significantly compared to the standard load profile of a customer. We do therefore not have two pricing attributes in the same questionnaire but one pricing attribute and one tariff attribute that allows to check the willingness to change to a new tariff model. The utility changing costs can therefore be directly used to identify the customers’ willingness to pay (calculated in comparison to the basic fee).

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Acknowledgments

This project is partially supported by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information Management, University of St.Gallen, Unterer Graben 21, 9000, St.Gallen, Switzerland

    Antonia Albani, Yannic Domigall & Robert Winter

Authors
  1. Antonia Albani
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  2. Yannic Domigall
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  3. Robert Winter
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Correspondence to Antonia Albani.

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Albani, A., Domigall, Y. & Winter, R. Implications of customer value perceptions for the design of electricity efficiency services in times of smart metering. Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 15, 825–844 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-016-0332-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-016-0332-9

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