Evaluating the effect of eight customized information strategies on urban households’ electricity saving: A field experiment in China

Abstract Using information intervention to promote residents’ energy saving has raised increasing attention. However, the effects of different information contents and intervention strategies remain controversial. Also, there are few studies evaluating the effectiveness of customized information interventions in motivating electricity saving of Chinese urban households through a field experiment. To fill this gap, a 20-week controlled field experiment in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province was conducted. In this study, eight information strategies were designed and tested for their power-saving effectiveness in motivating urban household. The results show that among the four separate information strategies, only environmental contribution feedback and cost-benefit feedback had significant incentive effects on household electricity saving, and the effects of normative information and environmental education information were not significant. Among the four coupled information interventions, only the intervention coupled by normative information and environmental education information as well as that coupled by normative information and cost-benefit feedback had significant power-saving effects. Moreover, the power-saving effect of environmental contribution feedback was greater than that of the cost-benefit feedback regardless in single or coupled interventions, while the power-saving effect of environmental education information was not significant. Finally, this study provided policy suggestions for encouraging energy saving in Chinese households through customized information.