Advancing realistic estimations of behaviour interventions: A large-scale real-world experiment on electricity consumption reduction in Europe

Abstract Decarbonization initiatives rely heavily on shifts in citizen’s behaviour. This study presents findings from a large-scale, controlled field experiment (N=2,554) conducted across six European countries, assessing the effectiveness of intervention campaigns aimed at reducing electricity consumption under real-world conditions. Our findings offer a nuanced perspective: only a modest proportion of invited participants actively engaged, but they achieved significant reductions in electricity consumption. We found no significant differences in the effectiveness of different intervention strategies, ranging from information to social norms or competition, suggesting the type of intervention may not be as important as previously thought. A critical finding of our research is that, although psychological factors were predictive of self-reported saving behaviour, they did not correlate with actual consumption data. Our results underscore the complexity of influencing energy consumption behaviour and suggest that future policies and interventions should take into account the multifaceted interplay between structural conditions and individual behaviour.