The impact of residential 'weatherisation' schemes on the domestic energy consumption of Irish households

Many countries develop policies to reduce emissions across different sectors of the economy. One alternative is to increase energy efficiency – doing more with the same amount of energy. Policies have been targeted at the... [ view full abstract ]

Many countries develop policies to reduce emissions across different sectors of the economy. One alternative is to increase energy efficiency – doing more with the same amount of energy. Policies have been targeted at the residential sector to encourage investment in energy efficient measures (also known as a ‘retrofit’). This paper analyses how a national subsidy scheme for home energy efficiency improvement has impacted energy consumption for a large sample of households in the Republic of Ireland using utility-provided metered electricity data from 2011-2017. An innovative contribution of this paper is a subset of observations for which we have metered electricity and gas consumption data, allowing us to offer a whole home energy use perspective of heat and electricity, rather than just analyse changes in electricity use. Using a fixed effects model we attempt to model home energy consumption as a function of dwelling characteristics, weather, energy prices and having received the treatment of a subsidized retrofit. The fixed effects specification aims to account for unobserved household-level heterogeneity over time. Results are of interest to the academic community, policymakers and industry stakeholders.