Consumer Behaviour towards Renewable Energies in Germany

This study tried to gain an understanding of the relative importance attributes involved in choosing green electricity by potential consumers in Germany. To determine customers’ preferred electricity product I conducted an online survey with choice experiments implying 7560 choice decisions by 94 respondents in Cottbus and Brandenburg an der Havel (Germany). Using Multinomial Logit (MNL) estimation I determined customer preferences and the importance of individual product attributes in product choice. This technique makes it possible to calculate part worth utilities for product attributes. Through the use of Conjoint Analysis, it was shown that The most important of the attributes measured was “Tariff”, it had the most influence on choice decisions, followed by “Percentage of renewable energy”, “Basic price” ,“Source of renewable energy” and “Supplier”. Based on the findings in this study, green electricity providers have the opportunity to get a further understanding of the key factors in choosing an electricity product.