The Willingness to Pay (WTP) Survey was funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (a bilateral United States foreing aid agency providing large-scale grants to fund country-led solutions for reducing poverty through sustainable economic growth) in partnership with the Government of Nepal (OMCN), and was carried out by CPCS/WSP/Econoler, a consortium of three leading Canadians firms in the energy sector. National implementation support and input was provided by Nepalese survey firm Solutions Consultant.
The main purpose of this survey was to: (1) assess the potential economic benefit of the incremental value of utilizing additional energy at a lower cost per unit of service in place of alternative energy sources such as: generators, candles, kerosene lamps, and batteries, for lighting and household appliances, and for commercial/industrial purposes; (2) Assess the willingness of households and businesses to pay more than they are currently paying for a supply of electrical energy with fewer scheduled and unscheduled outages and more stable voltage. The survey was designed to calculate for each targeted group its WTP for improved quality of power supply with regards to availability; range of fluctuation of quality; predictability of power supply interruption. The findings from the survey are expected to provide decision makers with valuable indications concerning the scope for possible tariff adjustments linked to improved quality of service. The survey also aimed to provide an estimate of the power demand curve of consumers as a key input for the calculation of consumers' surplus linked to power supply and improved quality of supply.
The survey was spread across 2300 households and 590 businesses in 58 districts across Nepal. The activities for the WTP were carried out over a period of 12 months between April 2016 (defining the scope of work) and April 2017 (finalization of the study report). A total of four questionnaires were developed for the survey (household, OOHB grid-connected, OOHB non-grid, business) and their content was converted to Computer Aided Personal Interviews (CAPI) format for electronic data collection using tablets fitted with GPS tracking. Apart from the household survey and the business survey, a separate price survey on grid-energy alternatives was carried out in the major cities across Nepalt simultaneously with the main survey. The main objective of this survey was to collect market data regarding the all-inclusive costs of grid-energy alternatives to determine the “revealed willingness to pay” amongst electricity consumers in Nepal. The information collected through this exercise served as a complimentary input for the main survey task.
Solutions Consultant was hired as a local survey firm responsible for data collection and submission of a clean dataset for analysis. Solutions was involved in the design and adaptation of study tools into local language and was also responsible for programming the questionnaires into a mobile platform. Apart from this, Solutions carried out the sampling, training of the field enumerators; managing the fieldworks as per the sampling plan; data management and output generation, delivery of clean data along with the technical/field implementation report. The data analysis was carried out by economists and experts from WSP/CPCS.