Do Energy-Saving Nudges Deliver During High-Price Periods? Field Experimental Evidence From the European Energy Crisis

Urged by the European Energy Crisis and the threatening consequences of severe natural gas shortages, energy providers launched gas-saving initiatives incor- porating financial incentives to reduce residential natural gas consumption. In collaboration with one of Germany’s largest energy providers, we conducted a natural field experiment (N = 2,598) to evaluate the effectiveness of a behaviorally-guided co-design of such a gas-saving initiative by implementing two established behavioral instruments – reminders of gas saving intentions and descriptive norm feedback. Our findings show limited effectiveness of the behav- ioral instruments during the high-price period. The feedback risks a “boomerang effect” among households with above-average initial savings, who reduce their conservation efforts in response. The reminder does not significantly enhance sav- ings in our main specifications, yet, realizes 1 percentage point savings in alternate models refining for outliers. Potential mechanisms include a significant intention- action gap and misperceived effectiveness of energy-saving actions, which are not alleviated by the reminder.