The Impact of Energy Cost Labelling on Property Energy Efficiency Premiums: Preliminary Results from a National RCT with daft.ie

If households underestimate the long-run energy costs of their investments, the demand for energy efficiency will be lower. This hypothesis is explored using a randomized control trial carried out in conjunction with the website daft.ie between February and December 2018. Property advertisements were supplemented with a new property-specific energy cost (annual) label using details from the property's Building Energy Rating (kWh and size) and the average price of energy in 2018. This label was assigned to half the counties in Ireland. Our trial is ongoing and our results should therefore be considered preliminary.