Behavioral strategies of occupant energy conservation are essential to counter the effect of growing energy demand. The wide application of occupant energy interventions, such as providing subsidies to promote energy saving, involves continuous financial investments, which has been a particular challenge to subsidy providers, i.e. national energy agencies. Exploring the cost-effective interventions is essential in the case of promoting household energy conservation in the long term. In this study, a promising strategy to lighten the financial burden of energy policy providers - Household Energy Saving Option (HESO) is proposed and validated. HESO is an option-based strategy that offers buyers (i.e. households) an opportunity to earn the reward, depending on whether they can achieve the pre-determined energy saving goal. A conceptual framework of HESO is established, which consists of five elements, namely theoretical foundation (T), integrated interventions (I), market premises (M), energy sustainability (E), and stakeholders (S). To test the effectiveness of HESO on household energy reduction, a preliminary experiment was conducted in 101 households living in Singapore and the results demonstrated that HESO has a positive effect on encouraging home electricity conservation based on the Difference-in-Difference (DID) analysis. Compared to the baseline of household energy consumption, HESO-induced energy reduction was 8.18% and 12.56% when saving goals were set at 5% and 10%, respectively. Possible reasons to explain different effects of HESO on energy reduction have been elaborated, including the effect of positive feedback and re-adjustment of households’ energy saving motivation during the transition period. Key determinants of HESO's success have also been discussed, such as management of cash-flow liquidity and design of goal difficulty. HESO shifts costs from energy policy providers to the households who fail to achieve their goals, which significantly improves the cost-efficiency of residential energy reduction strategies. This study contributes to the literature by developing a framework of option-based residential energy saving intervention. The results enlighten a promising and scalable solution by using a marketized intervention for promoting effective energy conservation in households while minimizing the cost burden borne by the city government.

乘员节能的行为策略对于应对不断增长的能源需求的影响至关重要。诸如提供补贴以促进节能之类的乘员能源干预措施的广泛应用涉及持续的金融投资，这对补贴提供者（即国家能源机构）构成了特殊挑战。在长期内促进家庭节能方面，探索具有成本效益的干预措施至关重要。在这项研究中，提出并验证了一种减轻能源政策提供者财务负担的有前途的策略-家庭节能方案（HESO）。HESO是一种基于期权的策略，根据购买者（即家庭）是否可以实现预定的节能目标，为他们提供了获得奖励的机会。建立了HESO的概念框架，包括五个要素，即理论基础（T），综合干预（I），市场前提（M），能源可持续性（E）和利益相关者（S）。为了测试HESO在降低家庭能源消耗方面的有效性，在新加坡的101户家庭中进行了一项初步实验，结果表明，基于差异（DID）分析，HESO在鼓励家庭节电方面具有积极作用。与家庭能源消耗的基准相比，当节能目标分别设定为5％和10％时，HESO导致的能源减少分别为8.18％和12.56％。阐述了解释HESO对节能的不同影响的可能原因，包括积极反馈的效果以及转型期家庭节能动机的重新调整。还讨论了HESO成功的关键决定因素，例如现金流量流动性的管理和目标难度的设计。HESO将成本从能源政策提供者转移到了未能实现其目标的家庭，这大大提高了住宅节能策略的成本效率。通过开发基于选项的住宅节能干预框架，本研究为文献做出了贡献。结果通过使用市场化干​​预措施来促进家庭有效节能同时最小化市政府承担的成本负担，启发了一种有前途且可扩展的解决方案。还讨论了HESO成功的关键决定因素，例如现金流流动性的管理和目标难度的设计。HESO将成本从能源政策提供者转移到了未能实现其目标的家庭，这大大提高了住宅节能策略的成本效率。通过开发基于选项的住宅节能干预框架，本研究为文献做出了贡献。结果通过使用市场化干​​预措施来促进家庭有效节能同时最大程度地减少了市政府承担的成本负担，从而启发了一种有前途且可扩展的解决方案。还讨论了HESO成功的关键决定因素，例如现金流量流动性的管理和目标难度的设计。HESO将成本从能源政策提供者转移到了未能实现其目标的家庭，这大大提高了住宅节能策略的成本效率。通过开发基于选项的住宅节能干预框架，本研究为文献做出了贡献。结果通过使用市场化干​​预措施来促进家庭有效节能同时最大程度地减少了市政府承担的成本负担，从而启发了一种有前途且可扩展的解决方案。HESO将成本从能源政策提供者转移到了未能实现其目标的家庭，这大大提高了住宅节能策略的成本效率。通过开发基于选项的住宅节能干预框架，本研究为文献做出了贡献。结果通过使用市场化干​​预措施来促进家庭有效节能同时最大程度地减少了市政府承担的成本负担，从而启发了一种有前途且可扩展的解决方案。HESO将成本从能源政策提供者转移到了未能实现其目标的家庭，这大大提高了住宅节能策略的成本效率。通过开发基于选项的住宅节能干预框架，本研究为文献做出了贡献。结果通过使用市场化干​​预措施来促进家庭有效节能同时最大程度地减少了市政府承担的成本负担，从而启发了一种有前途且可扩展的解决方案。