University of Michigan Energy Survey
Results from October 2013 Sample
John DeCicco, Ting Yan, Florian Keusch, Patrick Shields,
Bruno Vanzieleghem, Michael Sadowsky and Diego Horna Muñoz
University of Michigan
Energy Institute and
Institute for Social Research
March 2014
www.energy.umich.edu
www.home.isr.umich.edu
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
Degree of Concern about Energy-Related Problems
2
Views on Reliability
5
Views of Energy Affordability
8
Expected change in home energy bill and its affordability
10
Findings on the affordability of gasoline
14
Conserving energy for cost reasons
19
Views of Energy and the Environment
20
Sources of energy believed to most affect the environment
22
Expectations regarding the impact of energy on the environment
24
Conclusion
25
Acknowledgments
27
Appendix
28
A. Questionnaire Development
28
B. Focus Group Findings
29
C. Sample Design and Margins of Error
32
ii
University of Michigan Energy Survey
Results from October 2013 Sample
Introduction
Energy is a major issue that affects consumer wellbeing, the economy, the environment and
national security. Public perceptions of energy are buffeted by events ranging from power
outages to oil spills, from volatile prices and fears of shortages to promises of plenty, and from
concerns about risks to visions of a brighter future through new technology. Surveys are often
conducted to address various aspects of energy and the particular issues that arise from year to
year. To date, however, there has been no long-running, issue-neutral survey designed to track
core consumer concerns about energy over time. To fill this gap, the University of Michigan
Energy Institute (UMEI) has joined forces with the university's Institute for Social Research
(ISR) to launch a new survey that gauges American consumer attitudes about major energyrelated concerns including affordability, reliability and environmental impact.
The U-M Energy Survey is comprised of 18 questions appended to ISR's long-running
Surveys of Consumers (SCA). That instrument uses a nationally representative sample targeting
500 U.S. households that are interviewed by telephone on a monthly basis. The Energy Survey
will run quarterly as a rider on the SCA in January, April, July and October of each year. The
initial fielding of the U-M Energy Survey was in October 2013 and the resulting data are the
basis of the analyses reported here.
The Surveys of Consumers have been underway for over sixty years and are a proven
source of data that indicate the future course of the national economy with a striking degree of
accuracy. The Index of Consumer Expectations derived from the SCA is included in the Leading
Indicator Composite Index published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
Economic Analysis. This official use of the SCA's widely-reported index is a major confirmation
of the power of the SCA and its value capabilities for understanding the state of the national
economy and forecasting its future course. The resulting survey data become a resource for the
social science research community and are made available through ISR's public data archive
within about six months after sample collection.
1
Building on this pedigree, the U-M Energy Survey will offer unique insights into
consumers’ perceptions and beliefs about energy and how it touches their lives. It inherits the
rigorous sample design and statistical power of the SCA, and combining the new data from the
energy survey with the long-running SCA core data plus data from standard energy, economic
and demographic sources will enable a broad range of analyses and offer a deeper understanding
of Americans' attitudes regarding energy than ever before possible.
This report summarizes findings from the first fielding of the U-M Energy Survey. As a
household-level survey, its responses can be analyzed according to demographic, geographic and
other characteristics drawing on data gathered as part of the core SCA. Classification variables
used here include region, home tenure and property value, income, and self-reported-knowledge
of energy-related issues. Region of residence divides respondents into those from the Northeast,
South, Midwest, and West. A plurality of respondents was from the South (37%), around a
quarter from the Midwest (25%) and West (22%), and a lesser number from the Northeast
(16%). The sample was classified into thirds (terciles) by self-reported household income.
Respondents were also classified by home status (home tenure and property value), resulting in
four categories including renters plus bottom, middle and top terciles based on self-reported
home value; about a quarter of respondents fell into each of these four categories.
The Energy Survey also includes a question about respondents' self-perceived knowledge
of energy, enabling us to classify the population into consumers who said they knew a lot or a
fair amount and those who said they knew a little or nothing about energy issues. In the October
2013 sample, roughly 57% of respondents stated that they knew at least a fair amount about
energy and around 43% said that they had little or no knowledge. Responses were weighted so
that the results are representative of the U.S. household population; all charts and tabulations
reported here are based on weighted frequencies of response.
Degree of Concern about Energy-Related Problems
We asked a set of similarly worded questions regarding how much consumers personally worried
about each of the three energy issues -- reliability, affordability and environmental impact -covered in the survey. These questions were posed near the end of the interview so that the
respondents had already become familiar with the topics being addressed. Because these
2
questions were worded similarly, the responses provide an overall gauge of consumers' relative
degrees of concern about the three issues.
To probe the degree of concern about reliability, the respondents were asked:
How much do you personally worry about the reliability of energy? Would you say a
great deal, a fair amount, only a little, or not at all?
According to the results, approximately 31% of the population worries a great deal or a fair
amount about the reliability of energy. We found significant differences by income level; the
share of the population that worries a great deal or a fair amount about the reliability of energy in
the top income tercile is significantly lower than the one for the population in the bottom income
tercile (Figure 1). We did not find any significant differences by region, by home status or by
self-reported knowledge of energy.
Interviewers asked consumers about their degree of concern in regards to the affordability
of energy using the following question:
How much do you personally worry about the affordability of energy? Would you say a
great deal, a fair amount, only a little, or not at all?
We found that on average nearly 55% of the population worries a great deal or a fair amount
about the affordability of energy. Results varied by income level, with greater shares of the
3
population in the bottom and middle income terciles expressing higher degrees of concern about
the affordability of energy than seen in the top tercile (Figure 2). These results did not vary
significantly across regions, by home status or by self-reported knowledge of energy.
To probe beliefs about the environmental impacts of energy, consumers were asked the
following:
How much do you personally worry about the environmental impact of energy? Would
you say a great deal, a fair amount, only a little, or not at all?
Close to 60% of respondents replied that they worry a great deal or a fair amount about the
environmental impact of energy. No significant variation in this level of response was found by
region, home status, income or self-reported knowledge of energy.
It is notable that consumers are just as concerned about the environmental impacts of
energy as they are about its affordability. The values of approximately 60% and 55% for the
fraction of respondents expressing higher levels of concern about environmental impact and
affordability, respectively, are not significantly different given the sampling error. Both are
significantly greater than the 31% of respondents who indicated a great deal or fair amount of
concern about the reliability of energy.
4
Views on Reliability
To examine consumers’ perceptions of reliability, we started with the question:
Considering all sources of energy you usually use in everyday life, how reliable would
you say they are -- not at all reliable, slightly reliable, moderately reliable, or very
reliable?
If clarification was needed, respondents were told that reliability refers to members of the
household getting the energy they need when they need it.
Overall, around 75% of consumers perceive the energy they use as very reliable.
Significant differences were found when cross-tabulating the perceptions of reliability according
to home tenure and income. Among respondents whose homes were in the top tercile by property
value, a significantly larger-than-average fraction (close to 85%) considers their energy to be
very reliable (Figure 3). In contrast, a significantly lower fraction (roughly 63%) of respondents
in the bottom tercile by property value considers energy to be very reliable. A similar pattern
emerges when the responses are examined by income, with a significant difference between the
top and bottom income terciles (Figure 4). We did not find any significant differences in
perceptions of reliability across geographic regions or according to the respondents' self-reported
knowledge of energy.
5
After inquiring about general perceptions of reliability, the interviewers asked:
What specific source of energy were you mostly thinking about when you said that the
energy you use is [not at all / slightly / moderately / very] reliable?
6
Interviewers did not offer a list of responses or prompt consumers for any particular source of
energy when asking this question. Electricity was by far the dominant response, given by nearly
66% of consumers (Figure 5). Natural gas ranked second at approximately 20% while gasoline,
oil and petroleum ranked third at roughly 11% of respondents (replies about the different
petroleum-based fuels were aggregated when responses were coded).
The sources of energy consumers said that they had in mind when considering reliability
showed some regional variation (Figure 6). The fraction of consumers who identified natural gas
as a reliability concern was smaller in the South than in the Northeast and Midwest. Conversely,
a greater share of Southern respondents mentioned electricity when it comes to reliability. These
findings are consistent with the fact that natural gas is used by less than half of households in the
South but used by roughly three-quarters of households in the other regions.1 No significant
differences in the energy source of concern for reliability was found when examining responses
by income, home status or self-stated knowledge of energy.
1
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2009. Residential Energy Consumption Surveys (RECS); Fuel Used and
End Uses by Census Regions (HC1.7) www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/
7
Views of Energy Affordability
Consumers were asked about home energy bills (other than for motor fuel) as well as the
expected cost and affordability of such expenses in the future. A series of questions were used to
determine the degree of increase at which energy bills would become unaffordable and, by
implication, the share of the population that would consider their current energy bill to be
unaffordable. The first question was:
Now thinking about the last time you (or someone else in your household) paid a
household energy bill of any kind, how much did that bill cost you? Please do not include
your water bill.
If clarification was needed, respondents were told that expenses include whatever they might pay
for electricity, natural gas, propane, heating oil, or other fuels they might use in their home for
lights, appliances, heating and air conditioning, household chores, electronics and entertainment.
If they could not remember, they were asked to provide their best estimate. This question
allowed us to determine the currently perceived level of energy expenses. Then, consumers were
asked the following:
What sources or types of energy did that bill cover?
If respondents mentioned “gas,” they were asked to clarify whether they meant gasoline or
natural gas. We then asked:
At what dollar amount would that [type of energy stated by respondent] bill become
unaffordable to you (and your family)? By unaffordable we mean that you (and your
family) would be forced to make significant changes in the way you live your life.
Respondents were asked to report this figure in dollars. If they were unable to provide a dollar
value, they were asked how much their bill would have to increase in percentage terms to
become unaffordable. Respondents who said that their current bill was already unaffordable were
asked the dollar amount at which their energy bill became unaffordable.
Analyzing the responses to these three questions enables us to determine the percent
increase over their current energy bills at which household energy costs are considered
unaffordable. On average, we found that consumers believe that their home energy bills would
have to increase by roughly 170% (a factor of 2.7) to become unaffordable. (This result should
be interpreted as being relative to energy costs as perceived by the respondents in October 2013,
the month the data were taken.)
8
Significant differences in this result were found by home status and by income.
Homeowners in the bottom property value tercile believed that doubling their current energy bill
cost would make it unaffordable, whereas for homeowners in the top and middle property value
terciles and renters, the bill would need to triple before it would be seen as unaffordable (Figure
7). A large difference was also found between respondents in the top and bottom terciles of selfreported income (Figure 8). While a doubling (100% increase) would push home energy bills to
a level viewed as unaffordable by respondents in the bottom income tercile, the bills would have
to go up by approximately 250% (a factor of 3.5) before they are seen as unaffordable by
consumers in the top income tercile. The home energy bill increase seen as unaffordable did not
vary significantly across regions or by self-reported knowledge of energy.
This question structure enabled us to estimate the fraction of the population that would
view their current energy bills as unaffordable, a situation implied for approximately 5% of
respondents. This fraction did not vary significantly by region, home status, income or selfreported knowledge of energy. It is important to note that we did not explicitly ask consumers
whether they felt that their home energy expenses were unaffordable, but rather inferred those
perceptions based on responses to the series of questions described above. Framing this line of
9
inquiry differently could yield different estimates of the current and expected affordability of
home energy expenses.
Expected change in home energy bill and its affordability
Consumers were also asked what they expect their energy bills to be five years into the future.
Interviewers restated the specific energy sources a respondent had identified when describing
their energy bill; this was done in order to prompt respondents to estimate the future cost of the
particular sources of energy they use in their homes. The question used was:
About how much do you expect that [type of energy stated by respondent] bill to cost you
five years from now?
Respondents were asked to report this figure in whole dollars, but if they were unable to provide
a dollar value, they were asked to provide the expectation in percentage terms.
Combining the responses to this question with the prior responses about current energy
bills enables us to compute the increase in home energy expenses expected across the population.
On average, consumers expect that their home energy bills will increase by about 30% in the
next five years. Significant differences in expected energy bills were found by region, by home
status and by income. Respondents in the West expect their energy bills to increase by nearly
40%, whereas those in the Midwest expect theirs to increase by a roughly 25% (Figure 9).
10
Analyzed according to home status (Figure 10), homeowners generally expect their
energy bills to increase by around 25% over current levels, with no significant variation across
the terciles of self-reported property value. Renters expect a notably greater increase, foreseeing
a roughly 50% increase in their energy bills.
11
Even though energy bill expectations did not vary across the home value terciles, they did
vary by household income. The percentage that people in the bottom income tercile expect their
energy bill to increase five years from now reached 40% whereas this figure averaged around
25% for the top and middle income terciles (Figure 11). No significant difference in the expected
energy bill increase was found by self-reported knowledge of energy.
Considering responses to this question plus those to the question about the dollar amount
at which home energy bills would be seen as unaffordable, we computed the share of the
population who expect home energy costs to become unaffordable in five years. That value
averages about 16% overall. Cross tabulating by region reveals that only about 7% of consumers
in the Midwest expect energy to become unaffordable in five years, in contrast to approximately
20% in the South and West (Figure 12).
We also found significant differences by income and by home status. The proportion of
bottom income tercile households who believe that their energy bills will become unaffordable in
five years is approximately 30%, compared to less than 15% of middle and top income
households (Figure 13). Similarly, the share of homeowners in the bottom property value tercile
who expect their energy bills to become unaffordable is nearly 30%, compared to about 10% for
12
those in the middle and top terciles by self-reported property value (Figure 14). No significant
difference was found for this topic according to self-reported knowledge of energy.
13
Findings on the affordability of gasoline
Price expectations and views on the affordability of gasoline were elicited with a method similar
to that for home energy bills. The SCA has long included a question about the gasoline price
expected in five years. The Energy Survey rider adds the question:
At what price per gallon would gasoline get so high that it becomes unaffordable to you
(and your family)?
If clarifications were needed, consumers were told that by unaffordable we meant a price per
gallon that would force the respondent and his/her family to make significant changes in the way
they get around. If consumers stated that the current gasoline price was already unaffordable, we
asked them to give the price at which they felt it had become unaffordable. Respondents who
were unable to provide a dollar figure were asked to provide an estimate in percentage terms. For
such cases, we converted their reply to a dollar value relative to the national average gasoline
price of $3.42 per gallon in October 2013, the month the survey was taken.2
2
U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Petroleum & Other Liquids – Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel
Prices,” accessed February 1, 2014. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_m.htm; all prices are in
current US$ as of October 2013.
14
On average, in October 2013 U.S. consumers believed that gasoline would become
unaffordable at a price of $5.90 per gallon. As one might expect, we found differences by
income and by home tenure/property value. We did not find significant differences in response
across regions or by self-reported knowledge of energy. Respondents in the top tercile of selfreported household income believe that gasoline would be unaffordable at roughly $6.60 per
gallon, a dollar higher than the roughly $5.60 per gallon price considered unaffordable by those
in the middle and bottom income terciles (Figure 15). A similar difference was found between
respondents in the top and bottom terciles by self-reported property value, with estimates of
$6.50 per gallon for the former and $5.40 per gallon for the latter (Figure 16).
Compared to the actual average retail gasoline price of $3.42 per gallon at the time of the
survey, these results imply that an increase of 85% is considered unaffordable on average across
our representative sample of U.S. households. It is notable that this degree of increase in gasoline
price is half as large as the average 170% increase at which home energy bills are considered
unaffordable (compare, for example, Figure 15 with Figure 8 and Figure 16 with Figure 7).
15
These data related to the perceived and expected affordability of gasoline also enable us
to estimate the share of the population that implicitly viewed the gasoline price current at the
time of the survey as unaffordable, even though again we did not explicitly ask such a question.
When asked the price at which they would consider gasoline to be unaffordable, 3% of
respondents stated a price at or below the national average at the time of the survey. No
significant variation of this result was found across regions; with this very first sample, we did
not compare, say, regional responses to regional fuel price data, an exploration that might be
more statistically meaningful once a longer time series of survey data become available. Neither
did we find any significant variation by income, by home status or by self-reported knowledge of
energy. As was the case for the affordability of home energy bills, framing the questions
differently could yield different answers about the perceived and expected affordability of
gasoline.
The SCA has for many years included questions about gasoline price expectations, asking
consumers:
Do you think that the price of gasoline will go up during the next five years, will gasoline
go down, or will they stay about the same as they are now?
16
About how many cents per gallon do you think gasoline prices will (increase/decrease)
during the next five years compared to now?
On average, respondents in the October 2013 survey expect the price of gasoline to equal
approximately $3.70 per gallon in five years, an increase of 15% over the actual average that
month. We did not find significant variation, in either absolute or percentage terms, across
regions, by income, by home status or by self-reported knowledge of energy.
Combining responses to these gasoline price-related questions yields an estimate that on
average 12% of consumers that expect gasoline to become unaffordable in five years. This
estimate was found to vary significantly across all the classification variables except region. The
fraction of respondents in the top income tercile who expect gasoline to be unaffordable in five
years is only 5%, while this fraction averaged around 15% for respondents in the middle and
bottom income terciles (Figure 17).
The fraction of homeowners in the top property value tercile who expect gasoline price to
become unaffordable is also approximately 5%, similar to the fraction of the high income tercile.
About 20% of homeowners in the bottom property value tercile anticipate that gasoline will be
unaffordable in five years (Figure 18). Approximately 15% of the respondents who professed to
know a lot or a fair amount about energy expect gasoline price to be unaffordable in five years,
17
while the corresponding share of those professing to know little or nothing about energy was less
than 10% (Figure 19).
18
Conserving energy for cost reasons
To explore this topic, consumers were asked:
How often do you reduce the energy you use for your home or vehicle for cost reasons -always, often, sometimes, or never?
We found that about half of the population reduces energy use for cost reasons always or often.
Significant variation was found when cross-tabulating these responses by income and selfreported knowledge of energy. The share of consumers in the bottom income tercile who say
they always or often reduce their energy use for reasons of cost was 59%, significantly higher
than the 38% share of those in the top income tercile (Figure 20). Of the respondents who stated
that they knew a lot or a fair amount about energy, about 55% also stated that they reduce energy
use for cost reasons always or often. This compares to 42% among those professing to know
little or nothing about energy. No significant variation in this pattern was found by region or by
home status.
Additionally, we cross-tabulated self-reported energy conservation against the degree of
home energy bill increase that would be considered unaffordable. Respondents who said that
they always or often reduce their energy use for cost reasons believe that their energy bills would
have to increase by about 140% before they become unaffordable. This degree of increase is
19
significantly smaller than that found for respondents who said that they never or only sometimes
reduce their energy consumption for cost reasons; for this latter group, it would take an average
increase of about 200% before home energy bills were seen as unaffordable.
Views of Energy and the Environment
To probe attitudes about the effect of energy use on the environment, we asked a sequence of
questions designed to elicit consumers' beliefs without leading the respondents to focus on
particular forms, sources or characterizations of energy (such as names of fuels or adjectives like
"clean," "fossil" or "renewable"). The focus groups had shown us that although lay respondents
readily understand that energy use impacts the environment, their knowledge of the mechanisms
involved is very limited and their beliefs about how various forms of energy affect different
aspects of the environment can differ greatly from expert knowledge of the subject. Therefore,
we asked an open-ended question rather than reading a list of energy sources or otherwise
portraying specific forms of energy when exploring this topic.
A sequence of three questions was used to elicit the overall degree of concern about the
impact of energy on the environment, the nature of the concern, and the source or form of energy
that respondents believe has the greatest impact. The first question was:
Thinking about all sources of energy people use in everyday life, to what extent would
you say they affect the environment? Would you say a lot, a fair amount, a little, or not at
all?
Respondents were next asked:
Which one of the following is affected the most by the energy people use in everyday life - air, water, global warming, or personal health?
Then, given the individual's answer to this second question, they were asked:
What particular source of energy would you say affects [the air / water / global warming
/ personal health / (other)] the most?
If in replying to the second question the respondent gave an answer other than air, water, global
warming or personal health, then the respondent's answer was used in the third question.
The responses to the first of these three questions showed that a clear majority, averaging
about three-quarters of the population, believe energy affects the environment by at least a fair
20
amount. No significant differences in this fraction were observed across regions, income bracket,
home status and self-reported knowledge of energy.
The environmental impact categories -- air, water, global warming and personal health -listed in the second question were a set that had tested well in the focus groups and cognitive
interviews. In the focus groups, respondents described energy impacts on personal health but did
not necessarily link them to air or water pollution, and so we did not assume such a cognitive
linkage in our questions even though expert knowledge would hold that health impacts can be
caused by air or water pollution.
Approximately 42% of respondents stated that air is the aspect of the environment most
affected by energy use (Figure 21). Global warming was the second most common choice, stated
by 24% of respondents. Roughly 16% of respondents view water and personal health as being
most affected.
We found significant differences when examining these responses by income (Figure 22).
Air clearly stands out as the impact of concern for the top and middle income terciles while in
the bottom income tercile all four types of impact evidence a similar level of concern. We did not
find any significant differences when analyzing responses to this question by region, by home
status or by self-stated knowledge of energy.
21
Sources of energy believed to most affect the environment
When recording answers to the question about which source of energy the respondents believe
affects the environment the most, interviewers coded the replies into broad but not necessarily
mutually exclusive categories. If a respondent gave more than one answer, the interviewer asked
them to pick the one that they thought had the greatest effect on the environmental impact that
they had identified when replying to the second question in this series. If a respondent said “gas,”
the interviewer clarified whether they meant gasoline or natural gas. The percentages of each
type of response over the wide variety of answers received are listed here in Table 1.
Petroleum-related forms of energy such as gasoline and oil itself were those most
frequently identified as affecting the environment the most, corresponding to the answers given
by about 36% of the respondents. Coal was second with approximately 18% of the responses
followed by electricity with roughly 13% among the forms of energy frequently identified.
"Fossil fuels" (so termed by the respondents) ranked fourth (7%) followed by natural gas (5%).
When respondents answered "fossil fuels," interviewers did not try to clarify which particular
fossil fuel the respondents had in mind.
22
Table 1. Responses to the question asking respondents which source of
energy they believe affects the environment the most
Responses
percent
Responses (cont'd)
percent
Gasoline, oil, petroleum
36
People, cities
1.5
Coal
18
Automobile exhaust
1.5
Electricity
13
Pollution
1.3
Fossil fuels
7
Fracking
0.7
Natural gas
5
Power plants
0.7
Emissions
5
All
0.5
Water pollution
1.9
Chemical
0.3
Factories
1.8
None
0.3
Biofuels, wood
1.6
Hydroelectric
0.2
Nuclear
1.6
Don’t know / no answer
4
As shown in Figure 23, combining the generic fossil fuel response with the responses that
mentioned particular fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal or natural gas, plus the separate 0.7% of
responses that mentioned fracking, yields a subtotal amounting to roughly two-thirds of the
population. A category combining oil and gas (petroleum-related fuels plus natural gas) would
subtotal to roughly 42% of all responses.
23
When analyzing the responses according to self-reported household income, fossil fuels
emerge as the form of energy believed to have the greatest environmental impact by a larger
number of respondents in the top tercile than in the bottom tercile (Figure 24). Conversely,
respondents from the bottom income tercile were somewhat more likely to view electricity as the
form of energy that most affects the environment. No significant variation in the responses to this
question were found across regions, by home tenure and property value or by self-reported
knowledge of energy.
Expectations regarding the impact of energy on the environment
The next question asked respondents their view on how the environmental impacts of energy use
might change in the future:
Thinking about the next five years, do you think the energy people use in everyday life
will affect the environment more, affect the environment less, or will the environment
impact of energy stay about the same?
Approximately 86% believe that environmental impacts due to energy will either increase or
remain the same. This pattern remained consistent across regions, by status, by income and by
self-reported knowledge on energy.
24
A final question in the set addressing energy and the environment explored the extent to
which consumers reduce energy consumption for environmental reasons. The question was:
How often do you reduce the energy you use for your home or vehicle for environmental
reasons -- always, often, sometimes, or never?
Roughly 44% of the population claims to always or often reduce their energy use for
environmental reasons. The responses to this question did vary according to self-reported
knowledge of energy. The share of the energy-knowledgeable respondents (those who claim to
know at least a fair amount about energy) that reduces their energy use always or often is
significantly larger than the share of the population does so in the less energy-knowledgeable
group (Figure 25). No significant variation in responses to this question was found across
regions, by home tenure and property value or by income.
Conclusion
The first data set produced by the U-M Energy Survey offers intriguing findings about American
consumers' attitudes on energy. Among the broad range of issues that span public discussions of
energy, we identified three topics -- reliability, affordability and impact on the environment -that the lay population grasped well enough to provide meaningful responses. Multiple facets of
25
consumer attitudes on these topics were explored within the confines of the relatively short
interview time (which averaged about 7½ minutes during the October 2013 fielding) available
for the energy rider as appended to the SCA. A few notable findings stand out for their statistical
significance even with this initial 502 household sample.
In probing views on the affordability of energy, one set of questions elicited the cost
levels that consumers would see as unaffordable in the sense of requiring their household to
make significant changes in their lives. On average, respondents expressed a much greater
relative tolerance for an increase in home energy bills than for an increase in gasoline prices.
Mindful that such results would be sensitive to market conditions as perceived when the survey
was performed (October 2013), we found that home energy bills would have to rise by an
average of 170% while gasoline prices would have to rise by but 85% before being considered
unaffordable. The survey also asked about price expectations and found respondents believing
that, over the next five years, home energy bills would rise by 30% on average in contrast with
an average rise of 15% expected for gasoline prices.
Another notable finding is that American consumers are just as concerned about the
environmental impacts of energy as they are about its affordability. Roughly 60% of respondents
said that they personally worry about the impact of energy on the environment a great deal or a
fair amount, a fraction not statistically different from the 55% who reported similar levels of
concern about the affordability of energy. Significantly fewer respondents expressed such levels
of concern about reliability.
Looking ahead as new U-M Energy Survey data accumulate, future analyses will reveal
which of these initial findings stand the test of time. The growing sample size is likely to reveal a
greater number of significant findings based on classification variables such as region, income
and other household characteristics. As time goes on, the survey will enable us to observe trends
in consumer attitudes about the topics covered and how attitudes shift in reaction to changes in
energy markets and the events that inevitably impact the energy sphere from time to time. Thus,
by providing objective information on public concerns about energy and what individuals think
is important (or not so important), the U-M Energy Survey will generate new insights about
consumer beliefs and values as they pertain to energy. Such results will serve the broad public
interest and provide an valuable resource that will enable private businesses, policy makers and
other stakeholders to better address energy-related challenges in the years ahead.
26
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to many individuals for their advice, support and feedback throughout
the two-year process leading to the launch of the U-M Energy Survey. The project was made
possible with financial support and backing from the University of Michigan Energy Institute
and its director, Mark Barteau, and the Institute for Social Research and its director, James
Jackson. Paul Gargaro, formerly of UMEI, helped conceptualize the project and initiate the
planning. David Lampe of the University of Michigan Office of Research was an early supporter
and provided valuable advice throughout the process. Jim Lepkowski of ISR's Program in
Survey Methodology helped guide the planning and he and his students Yumi Kim and Yuan
Zhang carried out the review of the literature and previous energy-related surveys. Gabriel Tabak
provided valuable assistance during the questionnaire development and focus group testing.
Richard Curtin's input was crucial from the beginning and he, Rebecca McBee and others on the
U-M Surveys of Consumers staff were critical contributors in the final development and testing
of the survey questionnaire; Rebecca also went beyond the call of duty by performing the initial
analyses of the October 2013 data. Jennifer Puckett of ISR provided outstanding administrative
support throughout the process. The U-M Energy Survey team is also grateful to the project's
faculty advisors and other individuals who provided input, reviewed the development and early
results and otherwise assisted at various stages of the effort.
27
Appendix
A. QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT
In spring and summer 2012, existing surveys asking about energy issues were reviewed and
information about specific topics, sponsors and mode of data collection were collected. A
question bank with more than 250 questions was compiled as a result of this systematic search. It
was found that most existing energy-related surveys were developed either to investigate specific
aspects of energy, views of particular energy options and strategies, or in response to energy
issues of the day. Some did, however, include general attitudinal questions that were useful for
informing survey design. Based on the review and input from U-M Energy Institute staff and
faculty affiliates, a straw list of survey topics that targeted general consumer attitudes about
energy, independently of specific sources of energy or particular energy market developments,
was developed.
The topics were then tested in three focus groups conducted at ISR in March and April
2013 (see the summary of the focus groups given below). Based on the focus group findings, a
first draft questionnaire was developed, consisting of previously administered questions from the
question bank and newly developed questions. All questions were designed to be general enough
to allow the tracking of trends over time but specific enough for respondents to answer. The draft
questionnaire was then pretested and revised in an iterative process.
First, two rounds of cognitive interviews were conducted with 24 individuals in May and
June 2013 at ISR. Cognitive interviews include the “administration of draft survey questions
while collecting additional verbal information about the survey responses, which is used to
evaluate the quality of the response or to help determine whether the question is generating the
information that its author intends.”3 After each round of cognitive interviews, the questionnaire
was revised based on the problems respondents had with comprehending, mentally processing
and responding to the proposed survey questions.
Next, the questionnaire underwent further pretesting through expert review by SCA staff
and experienced Survey Research Center (SRC) interviews. Following the expert review process,
3
Beatty, P.C. & Willis, G.B. 2007. Research synthesis: the practice of cognitive interviewing. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 71: 287-311.
28
the questionnaire was pretested over the phone by the ISR Survey Research Center in early
September 2013. Pre-testing resulted in a need to limit the number of questions to fit within the
desired seven-minute time allotment added to the SCA interview. Based on the pre-test, the
energy survey questionnaire was revised into final form for data collection as part of the SCA in
October 2013. The analysis reported here is derived from responses to the 18 questions (which
are given in the main text) and we expect to use the same questions through at least the first full
year of the U-M Energy Survey, administered in January, April, July and October 2014.
B. FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS
It is hazardous to design an instrument before listening to consumers.4 With this in mind, we
conducted several focus group sessions in order to understand how the public thinks about
energy issues and learn the language they use to express their thoughts. This part of the survey
development process provides the background knowledge necessary to draft effective questions
about energy issues that ordinary consumers could readily understand and answer.
Focus groups are group interviews with a small number of participants led by a
moderator, who conducts semi-structured discussions on a small number of topics of interest for
the survey. We convened three groups with 5-9 participants each. In each focus group, we
discussed issues related to the cost of energy, energy reliability, energy security, the economic
impacts of energy, the environmental impacts of energy and energy conservation and efficiency.
We recruited focus group participants through Craigslist ads, flyers posted in Ann Arbor
and surrounding communities, and ads placed in local newspapers. We screened the volunteers
so that each group had a balanced mix of individuals in terms of gender, age, residency and
home rental or ownership, characteristics that are all likely to be related to individuals'
knowledge and views of energy. Table A1 shows the dates and demographic breakdown of
participants for the three groups, which were held in meeting rooms designed for focus group
research at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The three focus
group discussions lasted about two hours each and focus group members were paid an incentive
of $35 for their participation.
Focus group members were clearly knowledgeable and concerned about the cost of
energy. The respondents proved able to track their energy costs and bills, report costs in dollar
4
Krueger, R.A., and M.A. Casey. 2000. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
29
Table A1. Demographic Breakdown of Energy Survey Focus Group Participants
Date
Total Members
Gender
Ages
Residency
Home Tenure
Focus Group 1
Focus Group 2
Focus Group 3
March 22, 2013
April 19, 2013
April 26, 2013
9
8
5
4 females
5 males
5 females
3 males
2 females
3 males
2 aged 30-45
6 aged 46-60
1 aged 61+
1 aged 20-29
3 aged 30-45
3 aged 46-60
1 aged 61+
1 aged 30-45
3 aged 46-60
1 aged 61+
4 Ann Arbor; 4 other
Washtenaw County
1 Metro Detroit
6 Ann Arbor
2 Oakland County
2 Ann Arbor; 1 other
Washtenaw County
2 Wayne County
6 renters
3 owners
5 renters
3 owners
2 renters
3 owners
amounts, project changes in costs and describe the cost levels that would require their household
to make behavioral changes. They were similarly knowledgable about motor fuel costs, for
which they could report the price of gasoline in cents, project changes in price and report the fuel
price level that they felt would require behavioral changes. However, respondents could not
answer questions about the prices of forms of energy used at home, such as electricity. We
therefore decided to design questions that asked respondents the amount of their last energy bill
rather than price of energy, as well as questions regarding the changes they expected in their
home energy bills in five years, the cost at which their energy bills would become unaffordable
in the sense of requiring their household to modify its behavior, and how they would change
their behavior if energy bills reached such a level.
Respondents also had a fairly strong understanding of energy reliability. However, they
thought of reliability exclusively in terms of electricity and confused reliability with energy
security when they discussed the reliability of gasoline. With this in mind, we included questions
asking about reliability in terms of individual energy use and asked respondents for the source of
energy that they had in mind when evaluating the reliability of the energy they use.
The focus group results on energy security were much less promising. In general,
respondents had great difficulty understanding the topic and discussing it consistently. In the first
focus group, respondents did not understand what we meant by energy security and often did not
30
distinguish "security" from "reliability." When discussing the topic, it was clear that different
respondents understood energy security in different ways and generally did not interpret it in the
manner that the term is used by energy experts. For example, some viewed energy security as
pertaining to power outages or energy reliability in the future, or to nuclear safety. When we
provided a longer background discussion of energy security in the second and third focus groups,
e.g., specifically asking respondents about the security of supply for specific sources of energy,
we found that then they did relate it predominately to gasoline, oil and petroleum. They could
rate levels of energy supply security and name causes of supply disruption, but had only vague
ideas of the parties responsible for maintaining undisrupted supply. In light of respondents'
struggles with the concept of energy security, and the likely need for lengthy explanations when
framing interview questions on the topic, we decided to omit it from the survey.
Respondents had even more trouble when it came to making the connection between
energy issues and the economy. Respondents didn't even know where to start thinking about this
topic and so we decided not to pursue it in the survey.
Respondents also had some trouble with the relationship between energy and the
environment. While they could articulate their concerns about the environment and clearly
believed that energy production and use overall has an effect on the environment, respondents
had difficulty clearly connecting their environmental concerns with specific energy issues or
forms of energy. This lack of understanding regarding about linkages is consistent with their
general lack of knowledge about the production and sources of the energy carriers (such as
electricity, other home fuels and gasoline) they they directly use in their everyday lives.
Although a few focus group members seemed to have specific knowledge or specific ideas about
the issue, in general they demonstrated little knowledge of how energy is produced and
delivered, or of the particular environmental impacts of energy production and delivery.
Although all believed that energy had environmental impacts, focus group members had
diverse views of what the impacts were. Some linked energy to air pollution and water pollution,
but others linked energy use directly to personal health problems without mentioning the
environmental medium (air or water) that might be involved. Focus group members were clearly
aware of the concepts of global warming and climate change but did not have a consistent
understanding of what those terms meant. Some saw global warming as a rise in temperatures
whereas some saw climate change as meaning a temperatures change in either direction, for
31
example. Some saw the two terms as interchangeable and others believed that global warming
causes climate change. Due to the general lack of specific understanding of energy and its
environmental impacts, we developed questions that asked respondents only for general
impressions of the impact of energy on the environment rather than developing questions that
might attempt to explore views on the specific impacts of particular forms of energy.
Respondents also took issue with energy conservation and efficiency. While they could
provide correct examples for energy conservation and efficiency, they were confused when
asked to compare the two terms and did not make clear distinctions between the two. Taking
these findings into account, we decided to eschew the use of these terms and instead simply ask
respondents how often they reduce their energy usage.
Overall, respondents demonstrated only limited knowledge of energy. They did not
know where it comes from, how it is delivered, or exactly how it effects the environment. They
did not know a priori what was meant by energy security and could not relate what they knew of
energy to economic issues. A good number held incorrect beliefs, such as that oil is a common
source of the energy they use at home (such as electricity). Focus group members had little
consistent understanding of what is meant by "traditional," "renewable" or "sustainable" forms of
energy. Respondents were quite able to talk about their direct experiences with energy, such as
plugging into a power outlet or their use of gasoline and heating fuels. We decided to tap into
these direct experiences in the design of the survey.
C. SAMPLE DESIGN AND MARGINS OF ERROR
As a rider on the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the U-M Energy Survey inherits
that established survey's sample design and statistical characteristics. The Surveys of Consumers
(SCA as it is often abbreviated, based on an earlier name Survey of Consumer Attitudes) is an
ongoing survey conducted monthly through telephone interviews of approximately 500 adult
men and women living in households in the coterminous United States (48 states plus the District
of Columbia). The sample is nationally representative and gives each household in the
coterminous U.S. an equal probability of being selected.5 The SCA is designed to maximize the
detection of changes in attitudes by using a rotating panel sample design within the ongoing
monthly survey program. For each monthly sample, an independent cross-sectional sample of
5
Curtin, R.T. 2002. Surveys of Consumers Sample Design. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Survey
Research Center. http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/fetchdoc.php?docid=24773
32
households is drawn and a subset of the respondents is reinterviewed six months later. As a
quarterly rider on the SCA the U-M Energy Survey shares the rotating panel feature.
In general, sampling errors for estimates based on SCA questions depend on the number
of sample cases on which a particular estimate is based and a variety of other sample design
effects. Therefore, no single margin of error or differences in percentages that represent
statistical significance can be given that is applicable to the results of all questions and analyses.
For the single month (October 2013) sample of 502 households as reported here, the margin of
error is ±5 percentage points for estimates based on the full sample and response frequency
percentages near 50%; the margin of error can be smaller for frequencies much greater or much
less than 50%. Margin of error is defined here as representing a 95% confidence interval. The
error bars shown on the charts in this report represent 95% confidence intervals for the specific
estimates shown and all differences reported as significant were evaluated using tests with a
similar level of confidence.
33