Adverse selection problem due to asymmetry of consumer environmental awareness (CEA) could reduce electricity retailer's profit and obstructs renewable energy (RE) consumption. This study analyzes mechanism design problem of retailer constricted by RE consumption quota to incentive consumers display true CEA in competitive retail market. Based on principal-agent theory, we develop an extended principal-agent model with the addition of an RE consumption quota constraint to design a green electricity product menu which includes the green level, the price and electric quantity. Influence of information symmetry and quota setting on product attributes, retailer's profit, consumer utility, RE consumption is analyzed, and results show that: (1) Compare to symmetric information, under asymmetric information, green level of product provided to consumers with CEA (denoted as C1) distorts upward, information rent is greater than zero when quota is large, while green level of product provided to consumers without CEA (denoted as C2) distorts downward, with no information rent. (2) Under asymmetric information, unit environmental premium (UEP) of green electricity positively relates to proportion of C1, CEA level, and incremental WTP, and reaches the maximum value at a certain quota. (3) Under asymmetric information, retailer's profit and RE consumption positively relates to proportion of C1, and CEA level. (4) Under asymmetric information, quota difference could contribute to improve retail service quality under competitive retail market, and RE consumption elevation.

中文翻译：

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为不了解消费者环保意识的零售商设计绿色电力产品菜单


由于消费者环境意识 （CEA） 的不对称而导致的逆向选择问题可能会降低电力零售商的利润并阻碍可再生能源 （RE） 的消费。本研究分析了受 RE 消费配额限制的零售商的机制设计问题，以激励消费者在竞争激烈的零售市场中展示真正的 CEA。基于委托代理理论，我们开发了一个扩展的委托代理模型，并增加了 RE 消费配额约束，以设计一个包括绿色水平、价格和电量的绿色电力产品菜单。分析了信息对称性和配额设置对产品属性、零售商利润、消费者效用、可再生能源消费的影响，结果表明：（1）与对称信息相比，在不对称信息下，提供给消费者的CEA（用C1表示）的绿色水平向上扭曲，配额大时信息租金大于零，而提供给没有CEA的消费者的绿色水平（用C2表示）向下扭曲， 没有信息出租。（2）在信息不对称下，绿电的单位环境溢价（UEP）与C1比例、CEA水平和增量WTP呈正相关，并在一定配额时达到最大值。（3） 在信息不对称下，零售商的利润和 RE 消费与 C1 的比例和 CEA 水平呈正相关。（4） 在信息不对称的情况下，配额差异有助于提高竞争性零售市场下的零售服务质量，并提高可再生能源消费水平。