Abstract

During the winter 2022-23 residential energy prices were exceptionally high in Europe. In the UK, the electricity retail market was temporarily suspended and replaced with the government’s ‘energy price guarantee’ and other financial support costing an estimated £69bn (€80.7bn). Despite this significant intervention, UK households experienced unprecedentedly high gas and electricity prices. How did they respond? While in aggregate, prices rose and demand fell, the distribution of these effects was dramatically uneven among different societal groups. We present results from three sources of data: the Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL), the Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) and Utilita. The data span the period 2019 to 2023 for over 17,000 UK households and include gas and electricity consumption, tariff data, demographics and contextual information. The results highlight diversities and complexities in customer responses to price changes. We found that high prices put pressure on the most vulnerable households in different ways. Among the Utilita data for 11,500 prepayment meter customers, a group where fuel poverty is highly concentrated, annual gas use per household fell by 20%, while electricity use fell by 3%. When specifically comparing high resolution price elasticities for electricity among the EDOL sample, many low- income households were not able to reduce their demand further. The SERL studies showed that more affluent households are more responsive to increases in electricity price while those struggling financially are more responsive to rising gas prices. They also explored what actions were taken to reduce energy demand and by whom. These studies have proved to be valuable, yielding novel and valuable insights in times of crises. They have also demonstrated that collection of energy and contextual data and its evaluation are important roles for academic research in the net zero transition. By investing in longitudinal studies, governments have the means swiftly to understand future crises and to take the necessary action to avert serious social consequences.

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