Critics have speculated that the limited success of energy conservation programs among low-income consumers may partly be due to recipients having insufficient literacy to understand the outreach materials. Indeed, we found outreach materials for low-income consumers to require relatively high...

With the enactment of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, U.S. President Obama made a public commitment to a new approach to energy production and transmission in the United States. It features installing smart meters and related technologies in residential homes, as part of...

In-home displays, dynamic pricing, and automated devices aim to reduce residential electricity use—overall and during peak hours. We present a meta-analysis of 32 studies of the impacts of these interventions, conducted in the US or Canada. We find that methodological problems are common in...

This paper discusses volunteer bias in residential energy efficiency studies. We briefly evaluate the bias in existing studies. We then show how volunteer bias can be corrected when not avoidable, using an on-line study of intentions to enroll in an in-home display trial as an example. We found...

Regional Federal Reserve Banks’ manufacturing surveys provide important insight into national economic conditions. The Dallas Fed’s Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey performs well forecasting the ISM manufacturing index and U.S. industrial production.

This paper evaluates the accuracy of two methods to forecast natural gas prices: using the Energy Information Administration's ''Annual Energy Outlook'' forecasted price (AEO) and the ''Henry Hub'' compared to U.S. Wellhead futures price. A statistical analysis is performed to determine the...

The purpose of this article is to compare the accuracy of forecasts for natural gas prices as reported by the Energy Information Administration's Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) and the futures market for the period from 1998 to 2003. The analysis tabulates the existing data and develops a...

Reducing the impacts from climate change requires people to make decisions that may prompt substantial changes in their lives. One possible way to help them is with personalized decision aids. Here we describe a method for evaluating such aids, in terms of how they affect users’ understanding...