UK Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Low-Carbon Heating: Key Factors
Achieving the 2050 net-zero emissions targets (as set by several nations worldwide) requires diverse and effective strategies to decarbonise the energy sector. In Europe, the heating and cooling sectors alone account for nearly half of total energy consumption. A significant portion of this consumption relies on high-carbon fuel combustion, which has substantial environmental impacts. Consequently, the adoption of low-carbon heating technologies is becoming increasingly crucial. For example, electric heat pumps have recently witnessed remarkable market growth, with an annual increase exceeding 10% across Europe since 2014. Another notable alternative is the substitution of natural gas or oil in boilers with hydrogen. However, these low-carbon heating alternatives often involve substantial expenditure, possible retrofit costs and various tangible and intangible factors, including consumer trust in the technology, perception of its reliability, expected support, and attitudes toward climate change or the decarbonisation agenda. Understanding consumer preferences is important not only to drive the decarbonisation agenda but also to support the emergence of product and service bundles that meet the customers’ needs while also equitably achieving the desired policy objectives. To address this, our study employs a stated preference survey for data collection and estimates consumer choice models focusing on the UK residential sector. We specifically explore the impact of technology attributes, retrofit contexts and overall service provision, including the emergence of novel services such as shared heating or demand-side response. This study is conducted as part of two EPSRC-funded projects: the Integrated Development of Low Carbon Energy Systems (IDLES) and the Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC).
Speaker
Dr Han Wang is a Research Associate at the Urban Systems Lab (USL) at Imperial College London, collaborating with Dr Aruna Sivakumar and Dr Jacek Pawlak. His PhD research focuses on consumer activities and behaviours in energy demand modelling and demand-side management, where he integrates activity modelling and choice models into these fields. His recent interests include exploring energy demand flexibility and leveraging large language models to advance energy research.
About Energy Futures Lab
Energy Futures Lab is one of seven Global Institutes at Imperial College London. The institute was established to address global energy challenges by identifying and leading new opportunities to serve industry, government and society at large through high quality research, evidence and advocacy for positive change. The institute aims to promote energy innovation and advance systemic solutions for a sustainable energy future by bringing together the science, engineering and policy expertise at Imperial and fostering collaboration with a wide variety of external partners.