Willingness to Pay – Full Project Debrief Energy Saving Trust / DECC Quadrangle, April 2009

1. research for decision makerstm Willingness to Pay – Full Project DebriefEnergy Saving Trust / DECCQuadrangle, April 2009 Document prepared by: Ben Skelton ben.skelton@quadrangle.com Alan Merlehan alan.merlehan@quadrangle.com Daniela Fernandez daniela.fernandez@quadrangle.com

2. Research objectives Who we talked to The quantitative study - an explanation of conjoint analysis and the steps respondents went through Willingness to pay – conjoint results Motivators and barriers Energy saving measures installed and considered Trigger points – positive effects on uptake Information channels Contents

3. Key questions to answer with this research 1 Are consumers willing to invest in energy efficiency measures, if offered an option of alternative financial instruments? • What are their reasons for these motivations? • What are the basic levels of uptake for each technology, provided the financial instruments/financial outlay are considered to be broadly acceptable in relation to the perceived payback /payback periods? Do additional fiscal incentives make it easier for energy suppliers to deliver their energy efficiency commitments in the future? (how much does each of the incentives increase desirability) What features of financial products are necessary to drive favourable consideration for sizeable proportions of the target market (e.g. maximum payback period, minimum size of loan for different technologies, preferred source of lender etc)? What is the relative attractiveness of individual financial products or fiscal incentives? *The specific research objectives can be found in the appendix 2 3 4

4. Who we talked to

5. Location- London Who we talked to: homeowners, 25 to 60 years old, who had either joint or sole responsibility on financial decisions. We had a spread of solid and cavity homes. Locations: Guildford, Aylesbury and London We talked to: homeowners, 25 to 60 years old, who had either joint or sole responsibility on financial decisions. With a spread of social grade, cavity/solid wall, gender. We interviewed both couples and individuals. Visited rural and urban areas. Nationally representative sample based on age, gender, SEG, region, house type and wall type. 3 different research activities 2 focus groups 15 in-home depth interviews Online survey of 2956 homeowners

6. Online survey - demographics House type Wall type Hard to treat properties* * Hard to treat properties are those that are 1) not connected to the gas mains, or 2) flat dwellings, or 3) solid wall homes

7. Other demographics Average perceived energy spend £106 /month n= 2840 Average perceived council tax spend £121 /month n=2808 Perceived financial situation n=2808 Source: How would you rate the financial situation in your household? n=2920

8. Attitudes towards energy usage and the environment Source: QC1 And thinking now about your overall attitudes towards energy usage and climate change, which of these statements best reflects how you currently feel? n=2920

9. DEFRA and EST segments n=2587 (333 respondents refused to give their postcode or gave it incorrectly) n=2917

10. The quantitative study

11. Section 1: Qualification Age, gender, SEG, property type, etc. Section 2: Conjoint exercise Measure description Have you considered / installed? (Element Energy Qs) Introduction and financials description Trade-off Whole house trade-off Section 3: Attitudes towards energy usage Standard EST questions DEFRA segmentation questions Section 4: Energy efficiency measures in place and considered Section 5: Sample composition Size of property Length of ownership Planned length to stay Gone through renovation or planning it Type of heating / fuel used Section 6: Profiling Postcode Kids/life stage Education Working status Council tax spend and energy spend Purchase and advice channels Questionnaire outline

12. An explanation of the conjoint analysis Conjoint analysis (which comes from ‘considered jointly’) is an analytical technique used to ask respondents to look at three different energy saving measure packages and then choose the one that they prefer. The packages in this case were made up of 6 different attributes, shown to the right, which – in turn – have a number of levels. For example, in this case the levels that fall under incentive, included stamp duty discount and government grant, amongst others. By getting consumers to ‘trade off’ the packages in this way it closely simulates how they would actually purchase an energy saving measure. By repeating this process a number of times, we can understand which factors are influencing their decisions, and quantify the extent of their influence. During the analysis, each respondent is assigned an importance score for every level within an attribute. The attributes included in the study 1 Energy saving measure and monthly energy saving 2 Price 3 Incentive 4 Payment method 5 Monthly loan repayment 6 Time it takes to pay back loan

13. Attribute 6 – Time it takes to pay back loan This attribute is different in kind, as it is conditional – i.e. it depends on the price and the monthly loan repayment amount given at each package. The table to the left shows how the years were calculated. Time it takes to pay back loan (years)

14. Conjoint analysis – the process respondents went through Step 1 – description of measures • Previous research has demonstrated how the energy saving measures market is characterised by a lack of awareness and understanding. • In order to overcome this and to ensure that homeowners understood the complicated attributes that were used throughout the conjoint, the survey took respondents through a series of steps and stimuli before the actual exercise (we call this ‘conversational quant’): • Step 1 – a description of the 4 energy saving measures included in the study, and some questions around them • Step 2 – a description of the incentives and payment methods available • Step 3 – an introduction to the conjoint exercise • Step 4 – 15 different conjoint tasks • Step 5 – the description of the “Whole house approach” • Step 6 – a single conjoint task, which included the ‘Whole house approach” Step 2 – payment and incentives

15. Conjoint exercise – steps 3 and 4 Step 4 - 15 conjoint tasks Step 3 – conjoint introduction Respondents were told: “Over the next 15 screens you will be presented with three different options for an energy saving package that includes the incentives and payment methods you saw in the previous screen. “On each page, please select which of the three options you would choose for your home, imagining that you are thinking about adopting an energy saving measure and assuming that these are the ONLY options available to you at the time”.

16. Conjoint exercise – steps 5 and 6 Step 6 – conjoint task with whole house option Step 5 – whole house description

17. Willingness to pay – conjoint results

18. Importance of attributes The most important element in the decision is price, suggesting the decision is made in the wider context of spending on the house in general, which is what we’ve heard qualitatively previously. There are a number of slight differences in importance of attributes across demographic subgroups: • age - younger consumers place greater importance on price, whereas older consumers see the measure as having increased importance; • perception of their financial situation – the better their situation, the greater the importance of price, whereas those in poorer financial states place greater importance on the payment method; • house type – homeowners living in flats place more importance upon price, and less on the technology; • DEFRA segments – Waste Watchers place more importance on technology, and Stalled Starters more on payment method; • EST segments – Comfortable Conservatives and Environmentally Mature place more importance on technology and Restful Retirement on payment method. There are some caveats to this position that are discussed in the following slides.

19. Deep diving into the time it takes to payback loan • qualitative research shows that, in some cases, people don’t even stop to consider the package if they see extremely long payback periods. • Long payback periods seem to be a barriers to a large number of homeowners. This points out the need to emphasise on all marketing material the potential benefits of long payback periods, i.e. the opportunity of actually saving more money than you are paying out. Some quotes on payback period… “We looked into it but they were just too expensive – I’d be dead before it was paid for” “…and also five years is much better than twelve years and 33 years. I mean that's ridiculous really. It's much longer than most mortgages!” • This attribute is calculated based on the price and the monthly loan repayment only. It does not take into account the incentive or the interest rate. • As it was a ‘conditional’ attribute, it is not possible to assign it a ranking of importance. • When tested in qualitative research it was • clearly understood as the moment when the loan is cleared; • often benchmarked against a typical mortgage length, the length of time they plan to stay in their house, and simply considered in terms of 5 year periods. • By exploring the data it is possible to perceive that this is a vital attribute for a large number of homeowners: • some automatically discard options with long payback periods, even when the saving is greater than the amount being paid back.

20. The relationship between monthly payback, payback period and price - different groups of homeowners • The payback period is only a barriers to some homeowners, and further exploration of the data seems to indicate that there are different types of consumers: • Those that are guided by the payback period, i.e. they either have a preference to pay more to get rid of debt faster, or they simply have an aversion to long term loans. • Those guided by the payback amount, possibly in comparison to the saving, i.e. they prefer to pay less and save more, and are not daunted by long payback periods. • Those who have no preference, as long as they believe they are getting a good deal (most of the population). • Although these groups are difficult to identify, data seems to indicate that the size and composition of these groups vary depending on both the price and the incentive: • at lower prices (£1,000 to £3,000), a greater number of people are guided by the payback period – the reason for this can be that they are willing to pay more than they are saving, as they will only need to do this for a relatively short period of time (usually payback periods of less than 5 years) • when incentives are included in the mix, people are willing to payback more, and get lower payback periods, presumably as they feel the incentive offsets the cost.

21. Uptake figures for different packages From the conjoint analysis we are able to calculate the approximate uptake of different packages by consumers changing the levels within each attribute. The packages below show three very different scenarios in terms of uptake: the first package is one of the least preferred, the middle package is somewhat close to reality in terms of price and possible incentives, while in package C the incentive not only covers the cost of the measure, it exceeds it by £500. This means that even though homeowners are getting paid to do it, many would still not take up the package*. * A profile of respondents that will be difficult to engage can be found in the appendix, as well as differences in uptake by a series of profiling variables.

22. 1) Uptake figures with different price levels By taking package B as a base and altering the levels of each attribute for this package, it is possible to see what impact this can have on the uptake, i.e. the number of people that would purchase the package given it’s components.

23. Deep diving into the effects of price • As the graph to the right shows, increasing price by £1,000 will reduce the number of people interested exponentially. • The biggest drop is after £1,000 pounds, where up to 50% of the people interested can be lost. • Furthermore, there appears to be little difference on uptake beyond a threshold of £5,000. • We would therefore consider the tipping point to be £4,000 and the acceptable price range between £0 and £4,000. • The loss of interest that results from increasing the price does not seem to be affected by a changes in savings or monthly payback, however, it is affected by the presence or lack of incentive: • the loss of interest is less when there is no incentive.

24. 2) Uptake figures with different technology levels In terms of technology, higher savings lead to higher levels of uptake, but the level of saving appears to be beaten by the actual type of technology, with solar water heating and triple A rated windows both more appealing than wall insulation (external or internal). Reducing the saving from £40 to £20 will reduce the number of people interested by 13% to 21% (e.g. 32% vs. 26%), depending on technology.

25. 3) Uptake figures with different payment method levels When it comes to method of payment, homeowners are attracted by options that are interest free – paying from savings (when this is a possibility for them), or 0% APR loans appear to hold greater appeal. The preference for the payment methods also varies according to price – the higher the price of the measure the higher the preference for a finance option, and the lower the preference for personal savings. This is especially true is no incentive is provided.

26. Deep dive into the payment methods and finance sources The effect of using interest free vs. low or high interest methods • By switching from an interest free loan to a 2% loan, you will lose up to 20% of the people interested (e.g. 24% vs. 19%). • By switching from a 2% to a 7% APR, you can lose a further 20% (of the people interested). • Even though personal savings are the preferred method of many respondents, only about 28% of respondents would actually have this kind of money, therefore good finance options, especially interest free ones are key to develop the market. Some quotes on interest rates I just kind of think that any loan should be 0% because the government wants you to do it. It's not-, I kind of feel like it’s not our fault that things have got so expensive; and therefore if they want us to do something- then I'd do it but I'm not paying interest on it. The preferred finance source • Government is generally the preferred lending source: • on average, an extra 15% of homeowners would be interested in a measure if the finance comes from the government instead of a bank. (e.g. 19% vs. 17%); • energy suppliers sit somewhere in the middle. • Qualitative research showed that there was a lack of trust in banks given the current climate, and a general mistrust in energy companies. Some quotes on the lending source “I don’t want to give the banks any more money” “Not in this climate” “I don’t trust them (energy suppliers)– they fiddle with tariffs so you don’t know where you are. I don’t want to get any more involved with energy suppliers.”

27. Loan repaid through energy bill • The description for this payment method also went through a series of rewrites, as it was very difficult to accurately communicate all it’s nuances to homeowners in a few words. • The final description was the following: • The cost of the energy saving measure is covered by a long-term, low-rate loan • The loan is provided by a financial services company and the agreement is binding to the property whilst repayments are made. • Your loan repayments and energy cost saving is displayed on your energy bill. • You are free to switch energy supplier at any time and – should you sell your home – the new owner is responsible for the repayments. • Given that an APR was not specified for this option, preference could be higher or lower if a 0% or 2% APR was specified. • However, given that the description specified a low-rate loan, and that this option is generally preferred over all 2%APR loans, it can be inferred that the combination of attributes that this option offers, including the potential to pass on to the loan to the next occupant has a positive effect on uptake, albeit a small one. • Given that current policy for this option is to offer it on long payback periods, so that the monthly loan repayment is always less than the energy saving, we explored for packages where this was the case. • These results show that this option is also susceptible to the ‘barrier’ of a long payback period. • All this points out to the need for excellent and clear communication – not only is the concept completely new and difficult for consumers to understand, but there is also a need for educating homeowners on the benefits of long term loans. • Marketing material for this payment method should also: • addressed in conjunction with the worry of passing the debt to the next house owner; • highlight the benefit of not having to go through the process of applying for a mortgage or a loan.

28. 4) Uptake figures with different incentive levels • Consumers do appear to ‘do the maths’ to work out what will give them the most lucrative incentive within a package. It seems that the financial element of the incentive is more important than its source (government vs. council). • One-off upfront incentives are generally preferred to incentives provided over a period of time - by giving the incentive upfront, it is possible to give up to 30%less and get the same uptake results – whether this is preferable to a feed in tariff depends on the number of years, among other things. • A stamp duty discount is less preferred than ‘no incentive’, this is supported by our previous qualitative findings.

29. Understanding the low interest in the stamp duty discount • The description given for the stamp duty was the following: • A one-off rebate on your stamp duty payment, regardless of how much time has passed since you paid it. •  Thus allowing the rebate to be relevant to all homeowners, not necessarily the seller or the buyer. •  This description went through a series of rewrites, the original being the following: • The stamp duty discount will be passed on to the buyer when you sell your property, thus making your property more attractive (and potentially making you more money). • However, if you install this measure within 6 months of buying a new property, the discount will be given to you directly. • The reasons for changing the description were that w was tested at the qualitative stage all but one of the homeowners interviewed rejected this incentive for one or more of the following reasons: • potential of not selling property; • preferring to receive the incentive directly; • an intangible benefit; • contradictory incentive if the payback of the energy measure happens after a long period of time. • the 6 months cut-off was not enough. • they did not pay stamp duty. • Even with these changes, homeowners are still not interested in this incentive, including those that stated they did pay stamp duty. • The emotional charge of the tax seems to be working against it rather than to its favour.

30. 5) Uptake figures with different monthly loan repayment levels • Throughout the different packages, there always seems to be two peaks, one around the payback amount where people are saving more than they are paying, and one where the opposite is true. • The peaks and which one is more relevant changes with the price. • This confirms the existence of the three different whose size changes according to price. • Furthermore, it’s relationship with both the monthly energy saving and the number of years it takes to payback the loan (and by consequence the price), make it more difficult to accurately state it’s importance.

31. Understanding uptake with packages close to what is acheivable By offering all four technologies at the same time, at a discount of 33% on something similar to current prices, the uptake would be around 21% * Uptake if only that package was offered.

32. Packages that are close to acheivable with FIT By offering all four technologies at the same time, with relatively similar percentages of Government environmental rewards (FIT) on something similar to current prices, the uptake would be around XX%.

33. Deep diving into the time it takes to payback loan • qualitative research shows that, in some cases, people don’t even stop to consider the package if they see extremely long payback periods. This points out the need to emphasise on all marketing material the potential benefits of long payback periods, i.e. the opportunity of actually saving more money than you are paying out. Some quotes on payback period… “We looked into it but they were just too expensive – I’d be dead before it was paid for” “…and also five years is much better than twelve years and 33 years. I mean that's ridiculous really. It's much longer than most mortgages!” • This attribute is calculated based on the price and the monthly loan repayment only. It does not take into account the incentive or the interest rate. • As it is a ‘conditional’ attribute, it is not possible to assign it a ranking of importance. • However, when tested at the qualitative stage it was: • clearly understood as the moment when the loan is cleared; • often benchmarked against a typical mortgage length, the length of time they plan to stay in their house, and simply considered in terms of 5 year periods. • By exploring the data it is possible to perceive that this is a vital attribute for a large number of homeowners: • some automatically discard options with long payback periods, even when the saving is greater than the amount being paid back.

34. The relationship between monthly payback, payback period and price - different groups of homeowners • The payback period is only a barriers to some homeowners, and further exploration of the data seems to indicate that there are different types of consumers: • Those that are guided by the payback period, i.e. they either have a preference to pay more to get rid of debt faster, or they simply have an aversion to long term loans. • Those guided by the payback amount, possibly in comparison to the saving, i.e. they prefer to pay less and save more, and are not daunted by long payback periods. • Those who have no preference, as long as they believe they are getting a good deal (most of the population). • Although these groups are difficult to identify, data seems to indicate that the size and composition of these groups vary depending on both the price and the incentive: • at lower prices (£1,000 to £3,000), a greater number of people are guided by the payback period – the reason for this can be that they are willing to pay more than they are saving, as they will only need to do this for a relatively short period of time (usually payback periods of less than 5 years) • when incentives are included in the mix, people are willing to payback more, and get lower payback periods, presumably as they feel the incentive offsets the cost.

35. Uptake figures for different packages From the conjoint analysis we are able to calculate the approximate uptake(i.e. the number of people that would purchase the package given its specific components) of different packages by consumers changing the levels within each attribute. The packages below show three very different scenarios in terms of uptake: the first package is one of the least preferred, the middle package is somewhat close to reality in terms of price and possible incentives, while in package C the incentive not only covers the cost of the measure, it exceeds it by £500. This means that even though homeowners are getting paid to do it, many would still not take up the package*. * A profile of respondents that will be difficult to engage can be found in the appendix, as well as differences in uptake by a series of profiling variables.

36. 1) Uptake figures with different price levels By taking package B as a base and altering the levels of each attribute for this package, it is possible to see what impact this can have on the uptake,

37. Deep diving into the effects of price • As the graph to the right shows, increasing price by £1,000 will reduce the number of people interested exponentially. • The biggest drop is after £1,000 pounds, where up to 50% of the people interested can be lost. • Furthermore, there appears to be little difference on uptake beyond a threshold of £5,000. • We would therefore consider the tipping point to be £4,000 and the acceptable price range between £0 and £4,000.

38. 2) Uptake figures with different technology levels In terms of technology, higher savings lead to higher levels of uptake, but the level of saving appears to be beaten by the actual type of technology, with solar water heating and triple A rated windows both more appealing than wall insulation (external or internal). Reducing the saving from £40 to £20 will reduce the number of people interested by 13% to 21% (e.g. 32% vs. 26%), depending on technology.

39. 3) Uptake figures with different payment method levels When it comes to method of payment, homeowners are attracted by options that are interest free – paying from savings (when this is a possibility for them), or 0% APR loans appear to hold greater appeal. The preference for the payment methods also varies according to price – the higher the price of the measure the higher the preference for a finance option, and the lower the preference for personal savings. This is especially true is no incentive is provided.

40. Deep dive into the payment methods and finance sources The effect of using interest free vs. low or high interest methods • By switching from an interest free loan to a 2% loan, you will lose up to 20% of the people interested(e.g. 24% vs. 19%). • By switching from a 2% to a 7% APR, you can lose a further 20% (of the people interested). • Even though personal savings is the preferred method of a number of respondents, only 1 in 3 respondents would actually have this kind of money, therefore good finance options, especially interest free ones are key to develop the market. Some quotes on interest rates I just kind of think that any loan should be 0% because the government wants you to do it. It's not-, I kind of feel like it’s not our fault that things have got so expensive; and therefore if they want us to do something- then I'd do it but I'm not paying interest on it. The preferred finance source • Government is generally the preferred lending source: • on average, an extra 15% of homeowners would be interested in a measure if the finance comes from the government instead of a bank. (e.g. 19% vs. 17%); • energy suppliers sit somewhere in the middle. • Qualitative research showed that there was a lack of trust in banks given the current climate, and a general mistrust in energy companies. Some quotes on the lending source “I don’t want to give the banks any more money” “Not in this climate” “I don’t trust them (energy suppliers)– they fiddle with tariffs so you don’t know where you are. I don’t want to get any more involved with energy suppliers.”

41. Loan repaid through energy bill • The description for this payment method also went through a series of rewrites, as it was very difficult to accurately communicate all its nuances to homeowners in a few words. • The final description was the following: • The cost of the energy saving measure is covered by a long-term, low-rate loan • The loan is provided by a financial services company and the agreement is binding to the property whilst repayments are made. • Your loan repayments and energy cost saving is displayed on your energy bill. • You are free to switch energy supplier at any time and – should you sell your home – the new owner is responsible for the repayments. • Given that an APR was not specified, preference could be higher or lower if a 0% or 2% APR is specified. • However, given that the description specified a low-rate loan, and that this option is generally preferred over all 2%APR loans, it can be inferred that the combination of attributes that this option offers, including the potential to pass on to the loan to the next occupant has a positive effect on uptake, albeit a small one. • Given that current policy for this option is to offer it on long payback periods, so that the monthly loan repayment is always less than the energy saving, we explored packages where this is the case. • Results show that this option is also susceptible to the ‘barrier’ of a long payback period. • Marketing material for this payment method should: • educate homeowners on the benefits of long term loans; • address the worry of passing on the debt; • highlight the benefit of not having to go through the process of applying for a mortgage or a loan.

42. 4) Uptake figures with different incentive levels • Consumers do appear to ‘do the maths’ to work out what will give them the most lucrative incentive within a package. It seems that the financial element of the incentive is more important than its source (government vs. council). • One-off upfront incentives are generally preferred to incentives provided over a period of time – by giving the incentive upfront, it is possible to give up to 30%less and get the same uptake results – whether this is preferable to a feed in tariff depends on the number of years, among other things. (e.g. both the council rebate of £250 over 3 years and a one-off upfront council rebate of £500 have an uplift of 15%) • Stamp duty discount is less preferred than ‘no incentive’, this is supported by our previous qualitative findings.

43. Understanding the low interest in the stamp duty discount • The reason for changing the description was that when the original concept was tested at the qualitative stage, all but one of the homeowners interviewed rejected this incentive, for one or more of the following reasons: • potential of not selling property; • preferring to receive the incentive directly; • an intangible benefit; • contradictory incentive if the payback of the energy measure happens after a long period; • the 6 months cut-off was not enough; • (big one) they did not pay stamp duty. • Even with the change, homeowners are still not interested in this incentive, including those that stated they did pay stamp duty. • The emotional charge of the tax seems to be working against it rather than to its favour. • The description given for the stamp duty was the following: • A one-off rebate on your stamp duty payment, regardless of how much time has passed since you paid it. • Thus allowing the rebate to be relevant to all qualifying homeowners, not necessarily sellers or buyers. • This description went through a series of rewrites, the original being the following: • The stamp duty discount will be passed on to the buyer when you sell your property, thus making your property more attractive (and potentially making you more money). • However, if you install this measure within 6 months of buying a new property, the discount will be given to you directly.

44. 5) Uptake figures with different monthly loan repayment levels • Throughout the different packages, there seem to be two peaks, one around the payback amount where people are saving more than they are paying, and one where the opposite is true. • The peaks and which one is more relevant changes with the price. • This confirms the existence of the two groups who are driven by price and payback period. • As previously stated, the two groups can dilute the importance of this attribute. • Furthermore, its relationship with both the monthly energy saving and the number of years it takes to payback the loan (and by consequence the price), make it more difficult to accurately state its importance.

45. Understanding uptake with packages close to what is acheivable By offering all four technologies at the same time, at a discount of 33% on something similar to current prices, the uptake would be around 21%* * Uptake if all four packages were offered. ** Uptake if only that specific package was offered.

46. Packages that are close to acheivable with FIT By offering all four technologies at the same time, with relatively similar percentages of Government environmental rewards (FIT) on something similar to current prices, the uptake would be around 23% *(17% with bank loan). * Uptake if all four packages were offered. ** Uptake if only that specific package was offered.

47. Uptake simulator

48. Energy saving measures installed, and conversion rates

49. Stated consideration and uptake – low vs. high cost measures

50. Consideration vs. uptake From the low cost measures, the ones that homeowners have installed themselves are primarily energy saving light bulbs, double glazing and loft insulation, they also have the highest conversion rates. • It is debatable whether double glazing and condensing boilers are part of the low cost measures, however, they are part of the measures that are already in people’s mind and commonly used. From the high cost measures, the ones that people have installed are external and internal wall insulation, and both of these have the highest conversion rates. Solar water heating and solar electricity present a unique picture as they have the highest consideration rates from the high cost measures, but the lowest conversion rates, probably because of perceived high costs. * The conversion rate was calculated by dividing the number of people that have installed it themselves by the number of people that have considered it and installed it.