Using a large-scale natural experiment in staggered billing dates for energy use in Germany and a unique billing dataset for multi-apartment buildings, this paper shows that the month of billing is a significant determinant of heat energy consumption. A large set of residential buildings demand significantly more heat energy annually, when the bill is issued during off-winter months. The paper finds evidence for salience cycles of heating bills that last up to 4 months, likely because consumer attention to heat energy costs is short-lived and absent during months when heating is off. Importantly, this phenomena is pervasive enough to be detectable even in aggregated building-level consumption data. Results suggest that the mere knowledge of costs is not sufficient and that the response to billing information also hinges on its time-varying salience. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of cost salience in the design of effective billing for energy conservation.

中文翻译：

---

重要时通知我：成本显着性、能源消耗和效率投资

本文利用德国交错能源使用计费日期的大规模自然实验以及多公寓建筑的独特计费数据集，表明计费月份是热能消耗的重要决定因素。当账单在非冬季月份发布时，大量住宅建筑每年需要更多的热能。该论文发现了取暖费的显着周期可持续长达 4 个月的证据，这可能是因为消费者对热能成本的关注是短暂的，并且在供暖关闭的几个月里不会出现。重要的是，这种现象非常普遍，即使在汇总的建筑级消耗数据中也可以检测到。结果表明，仅仅了解成本是不够的，对计费信息的响应还取决于其随时间变化的显着性。这些发现强调了在设计有效的节能计费时了解成本显着性的动态和异质性的重要性。