| dc.description.abstract | Enforcing EU legislation and high electricity prices urge Norwegian residents to undertake energy-efficiency investments. However, investment inefficiencies, such as imperfect information on energy-efficiency investment possibilities, hinder such investments, attributing a significant gap between the actual and optimal level of energy use, namely “the energy-efficiency gap”. Previous research suggests that increased energy-efficiency investments by residents can mitigate the energy-efficiency gap, and advocates electricity utilities, referred to as utilities in this study, to help residents undertake such investments. Thus, this study aims to answer the following research question: “How can utilities leverage marketing communication to affect residents’ behavioural intention of energy-efficiency investments?”.
A mixed-method approach includes interviews with employees of a Norwegian utility and a focus group with the utility’s residential customers. Concurrently, a survey is conducted on the utility’s residential customers for triangulation and generalisation of findings. A multiple regression, adapting the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs, measures residential customers' behavioural intention of energy-efficiency investments based on energy-efficiency information from the utility. The findings substantiate that utilities can leverage marketing communication to affect residents’ behavioural intention of energy-efficiency investments by enhancing targeting, relevancy, and quality of the energy-efficiency information. | |
