Convincing people to buy into green, renewable energy plans could be as simple as making it their default option, a new study suggests.
The economists—Sebastian Lotz, a research fellow at Stanford University, and Felix Ebeling, of the University of Cologne in Germany—conducted an experiment to examine whether nearly 42,000 German households were more or less likely to purchase green energy depending on how the service was pitched to them.
Opt in or Opt out
In one group, the consumers were given the option to “opt in” to a plan that provided their electricity from renewable sources, at an increased cost of just $.03 per kilowatt-hour, or roughly $15 per year. (The authors note that green energy in Germany is relatively affordable compared to fossil fuels.) The second group had the green energy option pre-selected in the price structure, but was given the option to opt out.
