How punishment and reward increase customer acceptance of demand response in the energy industry

Following national and international policy guidelines for energy efficiency and in order to optimize supply and demand, electric utilities introduce demand response programs (DR). However firms struggle how to best help consumers to accept these programs. In the light of recent theories of decision-making that favour heuristic over information-based decision strategies, the paper at hand investigates the role of punishment and reward for consumer acceptance of DR. We find that although electric utilities design DR programs mostly based on rewards (assumingly in fear of consumer loyalty), DR regimes based on punishment appear more effective, without jeopardizing loyalty of consumers. Thus, in the light of prospect theory our data indicates that if firms help customers to avoid a loss in form of a punishment this has a larger positive impact on the intended behaviour than if firms help customers to gain a reward. Implications for practice and especially a demand-based view on environmental management apply