Voluntary electricity conservation of households after the Great East Japan Earthquake: A stated preference analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the voluntary electricity-saving awareness of households after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent accident at the Fukushima nuclear power station. We conduct a conjoint analysis of consumer stated preferences for the settings of air conditioners, refrigerators, and the standby power of electrical appliances, based on a web questionnaire survey administered in the areas supplied by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO). The main findings of this paper are as follows. First, we observe awareness of voluntary electricity conservation among the households in both the TEPCO and KEPCO areas after the disasters. Second, awareness of voluntary power saving is higher in the TEPCO area, which has been directly affected by the electric power shortages, in comparison with the KEPCO area, where there was no such direct impact. Third, if power prices are to be further raised, the consumer responses to the price changes would be small in both areas. Furthermore, we show that the potential voluntary reduction in electric power consumption of a household in the TEPCO area is 26% more than that in the KEPCO area during the summer peak periods.