Charging Ahead: Prepaid Metering, Electricity Use, and Utility Revenue

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jack, TKelsey; Smith, Grant
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Cape Town
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20180155
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 134-168
• 关键词: field experiment; performance pay; SOUTH-AFRICA; consumption; electrification; feedback; respond; demand; POLICY; POWER

摘要

Monthly bills for services such as electricity often go unpaid in developing countries. Prepaid meters offer a potential technological solution. In Cape Town, South Africa, over 4,000 residential customers on monthly billing were switched to prepaid metering, with random variation in the timing of the switch. In response, electricity use falls by 14 percent, driven at least in part by an increase in marginal price sensitivity. The decrease in revenue to the municipal electric utility is more than offset by lower revenue recovery costs. Switching poorer and more in-debt customers generates the greatest net revenue gains to the utility.