Energy and Environment Research; Vol. 3, No. 1; 2013 ISSN 1927-0569 E-ISSN 1927-0577 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 135 A Multi-Method Evaluation of the Potential for Using the Electricity Bill to Encourage Energy Savings in Norwegian Households Håkon Sælen 1 & Hege Westskog 1 1 Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, Norway Correspondence: Hege Westskog, Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, Norway. E-mail: hege.westskog@cicero.oslo.no Received: February 8, 2013 Accepted: March 10, 2013 Online Published: April 11, 2013 doi:10.5539/eer.v3n1p135 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/eer.v3n1p135 Abstract This study explores whether the electricity bill can be used as a medium to deliver information that encourages energy conservation in Norwegian households. Two main categories of information were tested: social comparative feedback and information about the monetary savings that can be made through specific energy-saving measures. The study combines four methods. First, a focus group study gathered advice on the categories and design of information that could influence energy consumption, and addressed general issues on energy consumption. Second, a field experiment monitored actual electricity use in 1000 households over a period of 10 months. In addition, through a survey and a series of in-depth interviews, the experience of the participating households was investigated. The experiment showed no effect on actual consumption. One main barrier was that only half the sample noticed the information. This suggests that the potential for encouraging energy conservation through adding new information to the bill in Norway is limited. The bill is already quite informative and is becoming less relevant as an increasing share of consumers switch to electronic bills and direct debit, which decreases the attention they pay to their bills. Keywords: information, energy savings, electricity bill 1. Introduction The question of how to motivate energy conservation in households has been a topic of considerable interest since the 1970s, as the answer is believed to hold great potential for reducing energy consumption and its associated environmental impacts at a small or negative economic cost. Tapping into this potential, however, has proven difficult. By now it is well established that technical and physical improvements in housing are not enough to guarantee reduced energy consumption (Darby, 2006). Consumption in identical homes, even those designed to low-energy standards, can often differ by a factor of two or more depending on the behavior of the inhabitants (Curtis, 1992; Keesee, 2005; Sonderegger, 1978). Further, economic incentives to reduce energy consumption appear to be muted, as there is evidence that foregone energy investment opportunities with a short payback time are ubiquitous (Stern, 2007). It has been argued that it is difficult to realize the potential for energy conservation because energy use in modern systems is largely an invisible good, which means that it tends to escape human consciousness and reflexivity (Lindén, Carlsson-Kanyama, & Eriksson, 2006; Pedersen, 2000; Winther, 2008). This makes it challenging for users to get a clear idea of how their use changes over time, how it relates to meaningful benchmarks, how it is distributed between different end-uses, and how it would be affected by various energy-saving measures. This study assesses the potential for using the electricity bill to increase the visibility of the good and thereby motivate electricity conservation. A field experiment is conducted in which different messages seeking to motivate electricity conservation are added to the bills of a sample of electricity consumers, and the level of consumption is measured relative to a control group. The field experiment is supplemented by a focus group study, a survey, and in-depth interviews to broaden the understanding of electricity consumption and of what motivates conservation. Existing studies on the effect of information on household energy consumption have tested various types of information delivered through a variety of media. The various messages tested in the literature can be divided