Residential Heat Energy Savings During a Crisis: How much Do Retail Prices Matter?

Abstract

The 2022 energy crisis led to sharp energy price surges and prompted public appeals and government programs to reduce energy consumption. This paper isolates energy savings driven by retail price increases from non-price driven savings attributable to other crisisrelated factors such as public appeals. Using German residential energy billing data and a DiD-PSM approach, we identify average price-driven savings. We employ machine learning to estimate building-level price-driven and non-price-driven savings, and analyze their variation with socio-economic characteristics using census data. Our findings reveal that energy savings were driven by non-price factors instead of price increases, and homogeneous across socio-economic characteristics.