Italian households' willingness to pay for green electricity

The EU directive 2009/72/CE imposes environmental and energy targets on European countries. The goal of Italy is to attain 26.4% green electricity (GE) production from renewable energy sources (RES) by 2020. This goal imposes an extra cost on households; consequently, it is important to estimate their willingness to pay (WTP) to attain this target. Our research is based on a nationwide survey of households conducted in November 2007 in Italy, explicitly considering uncertainty and the compulsory burden on the electricity bill. The results obtained with different models indicate that there is a noticeable WTP among Italian households for the GE goal and that estimated WTP differs according to uncertainty. Indeed, median WTP is between 4.62 EUR and 8.05 EUR every two months per household. Finally, the relevance of these findings today has also been discussed. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.