Households’ demand for electricity continues to increase. This trend per se should indicate increased disutility from power outages. Additionally, batteries and other back-up systems have been improved, and the frequency and duration of outages have been reduced in many countries. By comparing the results from two stated preference studies on Swedish households’ willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid power outages in 2004 and 2017, we investigate whether the WTP has changed. The WTP is assessed for power outages of 1- and 4 -h durations, and whether it is planned or unplanned. We find three main differences: (i) the proportion of households stating zero WTP to avoid power outages decreased significantly from 2004 to 2017, meaning that more households are willing to pay to avoid a power outage in 2017 than in 2004; (ii) the overall WTP was considerably higher in 2017 than in 2004, but (iii) the conditional WTP, that is, WTP for those that have a positive WTP for an outage, has decreased. These results have implications for how regulators incentivize and regulate electricity suppliers, because the results suggest that a reliable supply of electricity is of greater importance now than what the literature has suggested.

家庭对电力的需求持续增长。这种趋势本身应表明因停电而增加的无用性。此外，在许多国家/地区，电池和其他备用系统得到了改善，停电的频率和持续时间也减少了。通过比较两项针对瑞典家庭在2004年和2017年避免断电的支付意愿（WTP）的既定偏好研究的结果，我们调查了WTP是否已更改。对WTP进行1-h和4-h持续时间的断电评估，无论是计划内还是计划外。我们发现三个主要差异：（i）从2004年到2017年，为避免停电而声明为零WTP的家庭比例显着下降，这意味着与2004年相比，2017年有更多家庭愿意为避免停电而付出；（ii）2017年的总体WTP大大高于2004年，但（iii）有条件的WTP下降了，即因停电而具有正WTP的WTP有所下降。这些结果对监管机构如何激励和监管电力供应商产生了影响，因为这些结果表明，可靠的电力供应现在比文献所建议的更为重要。