Stick or switch? Consumer switching in 14 retail markets across Europe. ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/12

Consumer advocates and regulators encourage the public to search for better deals in markets for services like telecoms, energy and insurance, arguing that there are opportunities to save money and get better service by switching. Consumer switching can also help spur competition. Yet rates of switching vary a lot across markets: many people seldom think about changing their package or service provider and fewer still actually switch. If research can identify some of the barriers that deter people from searching or switching in particular markets, maybe policies can be designed to help enable and encourage switching behaviour. This study examines some of the factors that affect switching rates for European consumers across a wide range of markets

Evidence on the Efficacy of School-Based Incentives for Healthy Living

We analyze the effects of a school-based incentive program on children's exercise habits. The program offers children an opportunity to win prizes if they walk or bike to school during prize periods. We use daily child-level data and individual fixed effects models to measure the impact of the prizes by comparing behavior during prize periods with behavior during non-prize periods. Variation in the timing of prize periods across different schools allows us to estimate models with calendardate fixed effects to control for day-specific attributes, such as weather and proximity to holidays. On average, we find that being in a prize period increases riding behavior by sixteen percent, a large impact given that the prize value is just six cents per participating student. We also find that winning a prize lottery has a positive impact on ridership over subsequent weeks; consider heterogeneity across prize type, gender, age, and calendar month; and explore differential effects on the intensive versus extensive margins.health; exercise; children; school; incentives; active commuting

Consumer preferences for end-use specific curtailable electricity contracts on household appliances during peak load hours. ESRI WP632, July 2019

Growth in energy demand together with the expansion of variable renewables has significant implications for the future electricity system. The increased volatility from growing intermittent production requires new sources of flexibility at a much greater scale to help maintain system balance. In particular, it is necessary to encourage demand reduction during peak load periods in order to avoid high cost capital investments in accommodating future peak capacity. Curtailable electricity contracts are one incentive-based Demand Response (DR) instrument that could help increase demand flexibility in the residential sector. Specifically, end-use specific curtailable contracts work by curtailing the household load directly related to the final energy service provided, for example a washing machine. To help understand consumer preferences for these types of contracts, this paper employs a discrete choice experiment on a large representative sample of electricity consumers to elicit their preferences for end-use specific curtailable contracts on different household appliances during the peak load hours between 5pm and 8pm in the evening. Furthermore, this paper estimates the compensations required by consumers to accept curtailable contracts and conducts a welfare analysis from the consumer's standpoint to determine the welfare effects for 96 different contract scenarios. In general, there is a large potential for demand flexibility from end-use specific curtailable contracts with consumers found to prefer curtailable contracts compared to their status quo electricity contracts on average. More specifically, the results show that the type of household appliance in these contracts has the most influence on consumer's preferences. The findings also suggest that consumers prefer contracts at low event frequencies that also include advance notice and an opt out. Overall, the compensations required for such contracts are estimated to be comparatively reasonable to other contract types examined in the literature

Heat Pumps and Their Role in Decarbonising Heating Sector: A Comprehensive Review. ESRI WP628, June 2019

Household appliances represent significant load demand within the domestic electricity market, and therefore present considerable challenges for grid managers, specifically during peak demand periods. This paper presents the results of a statistically representative study of Irish households, undertaken specifically to assess peak period domestic appliance use, with respect to time of use and the socio-economic characteristics of the users. Specific attention is devoted to both an analysis of appliance use patterns, and to the likelihood of individuals using such appliances during the evening peak period, with respect to socio-economic characteristics. Results highlight the presence of potentially deferrable load associated with domestic appliances within the evening peak. Findings from both logit and zero-inflated negative binomial models provide insights into differences in appliance use patterns with regard to employment status, household size, the number of individuals present in the home during the day, and respondents' income. These results highlight the possibility of either targeted marketing campaigns to encourage appliance deferral to periods of lesser demand, or direct load control to reduce peak period appliance demand. In particular, both engagement in full time employment and number of household members present in the home during the day, are found to be significant predictors of whether or not a given household is a peak period appliance user. This suggests that there is scope for automated or remote appliance control to reduce peak period load without adversely impacting consumers. In contrast, household size and income emerge as predictors of the number of appliance use events that occur during the evening peak period

Understanding preference heterogeneity in electricity services: the case of domestic appliance curtailment contracts. ESRI WP638, October 2019

Various demand side mechanisms are advocated to reduce peak electricity loads, including direct load control, which comprises remotely shifting load to peak periods. Empirical evidence across several electricity markets reveals heterogeneous customer preferences for these and other electricity service offerings but relatively little is understood concerning the drivers of this preference heterogeneity. Using a discrete choice experiment examining the potential role of domestic appliance curtailment contracts as a means of shifting load, this paper investigates potential drivers of preference heterogeneity with respect to electricity services. Among the research findings are that almost 4-in-5 customers engage with the proposition of appliance curtailment contracts within the context of the survey environment. Customers that previously switched electricity supplier are among those more likely to consider curtailment contracts. From a policy perspective the results highlight the potential of appliance curtailment contracts as a tool to manage peak loads, as well as, the nature of preferences with respect to curtailment contract attributes. The research also finds that there is no substantial association between either the usual socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., education, etc.) or attitudes to environmental sustainability and preferences for various attributes of appliance curtailment contracts (e.g. appliance type, frequency of curtailment, opt outs, etc.). The absence of such a relationship makes it more difficult to forecast demand, to plan for infrastructure, and to design and market appliance curtailment contracts to customers

Drivers of people's preferences for spatial proximity to energy infrastructure technologies: a cross-country analysis. ESRI WP583, February 2018

Many countries plan to decarbonise their energy systems by increasing energy efficiency and expanding the use of renewable energy sources (RES). Such actions require significant investments in new energy infrastructures. While people are generally accepting of these infrastructures, opposition sometimes arises when these developments are sited at close proximity to people's residences. Therefore, it is important to understand what actually drives people's preferences for spatial proximity to different energy infrastructure technologies. This study examines the factors influencing people's proximity preferences to different energy technologies using a cross-country econometric analysis of the stated preference data from an unprecedented survey conducted on nationally representative samples of the population in Ireland, the US and Germany. The survey involved more than 4,500 participants in total. This paper presents the data and selected results from a generalised ordered logit model for each energy technology surveyed. These are; wind turbines, solar power technology, biomass power plant, coal-red power plant and natural gas power plant. The results show that, in general, German and Irish citizens are willing to accept energy infrastructures at smaller distances to their homes than their US counterparts. Moreover, attitudinal factors are found to shape people's preferences more consistently than any of the socio-demographic characteristics

Extended envelopes around Galactic Cepheids III. Y Oph and alpha Per from near-infrared interferometry with CHARA/FLUOR

Unbiased angular diameter measurements are required for accurate distances to Cepheids using the interferometric Baade Wesselink method (IBWM). The precision of this technique is currently limited by interferometric measurements at the 1.5% level. At this level, the center-to-limb darkening (CLD) and the presence of circumstellar envelopes (CSE) seem to be the two main sources of bias. The observations we performed aim at improving our knowledge of the interferometric visibility profile of Cepheids. In particular, we assess the systematic presence of CSE around Cepheids in order determine accurate distances with the IBWM free from CSE biased angular diameters. We observed a Cepheid (Y Oph) for which the pulsation is well resolved and a non-pulsating yellow supergiant (alpha Per) using long-baseline near-infrared interferometry. We interpreted these data using a simple CSE model we previously developed. We found that our observations of alpha Per do not provide evidence for a CSE. The measured CLD is explained by an hydrostatic photospheric model. Our observations of Y Oph, when compared to smaller baseline measurements, suggest that it is surrounded by a CSE with similar characteristics to CSE found previously around other Cepheids. We have determined the distance to Y Oph to be d=491+/-18 pc. Additional evidence points toward the conclusion that most Cepheids are surrounded by faint CSE, detected by near infrared interferometry: after observing four Cepheids, all show evidence for a CSE. Our CSE non-detection around a non-pulsating supergiant in the instability strip, alpha Per, provides confidence in the detection technique and suggests a pulsation driven mass-loss mechanism for the Cepheids.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

Prudence, Principle and Minimal Heuristics: British Public Opinion toward the Use of Military Force in Afghanistan and Libya

Research Highlights and Abstract This article shows: Clear pluralities of British survey respondents opposed their nation's military interventions in Afghanistan and Libya. Opposition to involvement in the conflicts mostly a function of the costs the missions would impose on the nation and concerns about the morality of the missions. Attitudes towards the parties and their leaders are weak predictors of the respondents' attitudes towards involving the nation's military in the conflict. Survey experiment reveals the positions leaders and parties took on sending additional British troops into Afghanistan did not prime support or opposition to such a ‘surge’. Scholarship is divided on the primary drivers of public support for the use of military force. This article addresses this controversy by comparing three competing models of British public opinion towards the use of military force in Afghanistan and Libya. Analyses of national survey data demonstrate that cost-benefit calculations and normative considerations have sizable effects, but leader images and other heuristics have very limited explanatory power. These results are buttressed by experimental evidence showing that leader cues have negligible impacts on attitudes towards participation in a military ‘surge’ in Afghanistan. The minimal role heuristics played in motivating citizen support and opposition to the conflicts in these two countries contrast with their significant relationship to citizen attitudes towards the British intervention in Iraq. These conflicting results suggest that the strength of leader and partisan cues may be animated by the intensity of inter-elite conflict over British involvement in military interventions. </jats:p

Photometry of Kuiper belt object (486958) Arrokoth from New Horizons LORRI

On January 1st 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the classical Kuiper belt object (486958) Arrokoth (provisionally designated 2014 MU69), possibly the most primitive object ever explored by a spacecraft. The I/F of Arrokoth is analyzed and fit with a photometric function that is a linear combination of the Lommel-Seeliger (lunar) and Lambert photometric functions. Arrokoth has a geometric albedo of p_v = 0.21_(−0.04)^(+0.05) at a wavelength of 550 nm and ≈0.24 at 610 nm. Arrokoth's geometric albedo is greater than the median but consistent with a distribution of cold classical Kuiper belt objects whose geometric albedos were determined by fitting a thermal model to radiometric observations. Thus, Arrokoth's geometric albedo adds to the orbital and spectral evidence that it is a cold classical Kuiper belt object. Maps of the normal reflectance and hemispherical albedo of Arrokoth are presented. The normal reflectance of Arrokoth's surface varies with location, ranging from ≈0.10–0.40 at 610 nm with an approximately Gaussian distribution. Both Arrokoth's extrema dark and extrema bright surfaces are correlated to topographic depressions. Arrokoth has a bilobate shape and the two lobes have similar normal reflectance distributions: both are approximately Gaussian, peak at ≈0.25 at 610 nm, and range from ≈0.10–0.40, which is consistent with co-formation and co-evolution of the two lobes. The hemispherical albedo of Arrokoth varies substantially with both incidence angle and location, the average hemispherical albedo at 610 nm is 0.063 ± 0.015. The Bond albedo of Arrokoth at 610 nm is 0.062 ± 0.015