摘要：This paper uses a large OECD web survey to shed light on preferences for renewable energy in the residential sector in six OECD countries. The key contributions are as follows. First, the authors propose to elicit willingness-to-pay (WTP) in a way that solves a consistency problem when a price, such as the price of green energy, is used as a payment vehicle in a survey. Given that the paper is only interested in the value of “green” energy per se, it is needed to take into account the fact that an increased electricity price implies lower consumption (and a utility loss). The authors thus elicit the value of “green electricity” as the maximum percentage of the current electricity bill the person is willing to pay to “re-mix” electricity supply such that it is based only on renewable energy. Second, using a multi-country survey, we find WTP to be in the order of a few percentages in each of the countries surveyed, buttressing the idea that it is difficult to extract a sizable price-premium in the market quite independently of where this strategy is tried (in the OECD, at least). Third, environmental concern/attitude consistently drives the decision to enter the (hypothetical) market for “green electricity”, while membership in environmental organizations typically affects how much a person wants to pay, given entry. Economic variables are less important.
