Swiss Household Energy Demand Survey (SHEDS)
The Swiss Household Energy Demand Survey (SHEDS) was developed as part of the research agenda of the Competence Center for Research in Energy, Society, and Transition (SCCER CREST). It was designed to collect a comprehensive description of the Swiss households’ energy‐related behaviors, their longitudinal changes and the existing potentials for future energy demand reduction. So far, five annual waves (2016-2020) were conducted under the umbrella of the SCCER CREST (generating a rolling panel dataset of 5,000 respondents per wave).
From 2021 onwards further SHEDS-waves are planned under the umbrella of this Research Network (with research partners of the Universities of Basel and Neuchâtel).
The SHEDS-data contain information on equipment and use for the same households in three different fields of energy consumption:
- Heating: heating system, temperature, use of hot water, …
- Electricity: type and efficiency of appliances, usage of electrical appliances, …
- Mobility: type and efficiency of vehicle, vehicle size and usage (km), distance to workplace, …
The household characteristics collected can be classified in three main disciplines:
- Economics: number of people, age, income, education, type of residence, energy literacy…
- Psychology: environment attitudes, risk attitudes, emotions, values, life satisfaction, …
- Sociology: social norms, performance, context, life events, …
Time-varying characteristics are being collected in every wave of the survey in order to track changes over time at the individual level. Time‐invariant characteristics, however, are naturally collected only once for each respondent, at the time of first entrance in SHEDS. Additional modules with various types of choice experiments are implemented since the second wave of the survey.
| Topic | Information |
| Institutions involved 2021ff. | University of Basel and University of Neuchâtel |
| Disciplines involved | Economics, psychology, sociology |
| Geographical Space of the Survey | Switzerland (without Ticino) |
| Data Collection Method | Online survey |
| Questionnaires / Data Availability | Please contact Andrea Ottolini-Voellmy in any case of questions to Questionnaires, Data Management (including Data Availability). |
Scientific Reports resulting from SHEDS:
Burger. P.; Schubert, I; Van Dijk, J.; Puntiroli, M.; Volland, B.; Weber, S.; Farsi, M. (2018): Energieverbrauch der Haushalte in der Schweiz (German Version) / Consommation d‘énergie des ménages en Suisse (French Version), SCCER CREST Report.
SHEDS-Showroom: This showroom provides an overview of the collected data on household energy use in the areas heating, mobility, electricity, distinguished by cantons and years.