Peer-reviewed Publication
Weather Effects in Energy Seasonal Adjustment: An Application to France Energy Consumption. Bruguet, M., Thomas, A. and Le Saout, R. (2025), The Energy Journal, vol. 46, n°5 [working paper] [slides]
Awarded : Best student paper 2024 by the FAEE
Conferences presentation: ICEEF 2024, IAAE 2024, ISF 2024, JMS 2025
Workshops presentation: FAEE Doctoral Student Workshop 2024
This paper addresses the challenge of adjusting energy consumption data for weather variations by introducing a novel General Weather Indicator (GWI). The GWI combines multiple weather variables, including temperature, wind, sunlight, rain, and cloudiness, using a novel econometric approach that applies K-means for threshold identification and LASSO for variable selection. Through an empirical analysis of sectoral, electricity and natural gas consumption in France, we demonstrate that the GWI outperforms the standard HDD approach by addressing three main concerns: the lack of statistical criteria for defining the base temperature, the reliance solely on temperature as the weather variable, and the assumption of a constant base temperature over time and space. Based on these results, we propose an analysis of the sectoral functional form and an estimation of weather elasticities for energy demand in France at both monthly and daily levels.
Working Paper
When Words Save Watts: Government Communication and Household Electricity Use. Bruguet, M. (2026) [working paper] [slides]
Conferences presentation: WCERE 2026, AFSE 2026, IAEE 2025, FAERE 2025, AICC 2025, BEHAVE 2025
Workshops presentation: LoDEEP 2026, IPWSD 2026, Sustainable Development Colloquium SIPA 2026, AMSE Big Data and Econometrics Seminar 2025, YEEES 2025, PPSEE 2025, LEDa PhD Seminar 2024
A fundamental question for policymakers is whether communication can serve as an effective policy instrument. This paper examines France’s energy crisis of 2022, during which surging prices prompted one of Europe’s largest conservation campaigns. The present study investigates the relationship between official messaging, public attention and electricity demand. The analysis of the causal chain reveals that the effectiveness of communication depends on two factors: message framing and household flexibility. The findings indicate that information campaigns have the capacity to augment existing demand-side flexibility rather than creating it, thereby constraining their effectiveness as a standalone policy instrument.
Subsidising Electrification: Causal Effects of Heat Pump Adoption on Household Energy Consumption. Baba-Moussa, W. and Bruguet, M. (2026) [Working paper incoming]
Workshops presentation: Sustainable Development Colloquium SIPA 2026, LEDa PhD retreat 2026, EdF R&D PhD seminar 2026, CentraleSupélec Working Paper Days 2026, SDES internal seminar 2026
Heat pump (HP) subsidies are a cornerstone of residential decarbonisation policy, but they are largely allocated by technology alone, ignoring heterogeneity in the counterfactual heating system. We combine smart-meter consumption data for 48,000 owner-occupied single-family homes in France with administrative subsidy records and estimate the effects of 1,035 subsidised adoptions using a staggered difference-in-differences design. Abatement is driven by the adoption margin rather than the technology: replacing a gas boiler with an air-water heat pump reduces emissions by 2.1 tCO2 per year, roughly fourteen times the abatement achieved when the same unit displaces electric heating. Integrating private, social, and fiscal perspectives, we show that only air-water units replacing gas boilers deliver positive net private and social returns and a marginal value of public funds exceeding one, with returns increasing in pre-adoption energy intensity. Therefore, targeting subsidies on the displaced fuel and baseline consumption would raise the efficiency of public spending.
Research in Progress
Revisiting an Economical Project: Evidence on Daylight Saving Time and Electricity Use
Bruguet, M. and Creti A. (2026)
Financing Beliefs as a Barrier to Home Energy Renovation
Jacobsen, A., Riegels, D., Bruguet, M. and Gravert, C. (2026), (AEARCTR-0019898)