How to foster the adoption of electricity smart meters? A longitudinal field study of residential consumers

Abstract

The objective of this research was to explore correlates and predictors that play a role in the process of adopting and withdrawing from using a smart metering information platform (SMP). The SMP supports energy monitoring behaviors of the electricity consumers. The literature review shows, however, that not every customer is ready to the same extent to adopt novel solutions. Adoption requires going through stages of readiness to monitor energy consumption in a household. In a longitudinal field experiment on Polish residential consumers, we aimed to see whether messages congruent with the stage of readiness in which participants declared to be at a given moment will be more effective in prompting participants to progress to the next stage than a general message or a passive control condition. We also tested the effect of attitude and knowledge about energy monitoring on phase changes. Our study reveals that what affects the phase change is the participation in the study. The longer the participants were engaged in the usage of SMP, the more willing they were to monitor their energy consumption in the future. This result sheds light on the future educational and marketing efforts of the authorities and energy suppliers.