Evaluating energy efficiency policy: understanding the ‘energy policy epistemology’ may explain the lack of demand for randomised controlled trials

Abstract

Vine et al.’s (2014) call for more randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in government-funded energy efficiency policy evaluation practice raises timely questions about what constitutes effective designs for evaluating and informing energy policy. Their implicit hypothesis that policy organisations share the same epistemic perspective as they do, and that the reason there are few RCTs are due to a set of barriers to be overcome is examined in relation to the UK government Department of Energy and Climate Change. Drawing on the author’s experience of working in the ministry, the claim that barriers are a reason for preventing RCT use is discounted. An alternative explanation is presented, framed around the idea of an ‘energy policy epistemology’ that legitimately places certain specific knowledge demands and ways of knowing on research and evaluation designs. Through examination of a specific set of research and evaluation outputs related to the UK energy efficiency policy called the ‘Green Deal’, aspects of the proposed ‘energy policy epistemology’ are elucidated to explain the lack of demand for RCT designs. Final consideration is given to what kinds of designs are more likely to gain support in this context that might also deliver many of the benefits attributed to RCTs with longitudinal panels being one important example.