Determinants of consumers' preferences for renewable energy

Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) and the related Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint (ACBC) are widely used to elicit consumers preferences for any type of goods. The collected data can also be used to predict the demand of a certain product. My current research addresses the question, under what conditions the predictive power of these both techniques increases. To answer this question, we conduct several experiments with different settings and product types. Additionally, I use CBC and ACBC to measure part-worth utilities of different components of electricity product and of different components of electricity mix. First results show that customers differentiate between renewable energy sources regarding their preferences and their willingness to pay. This leads to the question, whether the current form of energy mix presentation, where all renewable energy sources are summed up, is sufficient or whether it would be better to report its single components.