Demand Side Management

The project deals with the Demand Side Management (DSM) in households in
Poland. The publications describes results of the study on consumer preferences towards DSM
programs and verifies hypotheses about the influence of psychological factors on the
acceptance of demand control. The empirical part of the project was based on an online survey (questionnaire + experiment) conducted on a representative sample of 1,000 Poles. The
Choice Experiment (CE) method was used to analyze the choices between different electricity
contracts involving demand management. The main objective of the study was to estimate the
value of discomfort from external control of electricity consumption and sharing consumption
information. The results of the experiment made it possible to estimate the compensation
people need to accept the external control of electricity. Additionally, the impact of the social
comparison (between household energy consumption and the respondent’s “powiat” average) on DSM acceptance was examined.

DSM makes it possible to influence the demand for electricity, it modifies the consumption
profiles of consumers by means of incentives to change their behavior. DSM use incentive
programs to reduce/shift energy consumption, e.g. multi-part tariffs, control of electrical
appliances. The development of DSM in Poland may bring significant economic gains for the
entire country, resulting from the reduction of transmission losses, reduction of a peak load in
the system, and avoiding investment costs.