Thesis competition

SEEF arranges a thesis competition aimed at students at the Master’s level in Economics. Contributions shall analyze questions within the field of energy economics. The prize sum is 15 000 SEK, and the winner is announced in September 2025.

This annual competition is organized in cooperation with Energiforsk, a politically independent not-for-profit organization. The purpose of the competition is to increase students’ interest in energy economics.

Competition rules

Contribtions shall be in Swedish or English and have been faculty approved between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. The thesis should contain an executive summary in Swedish. This summary can be attached separately.

Documentation verifying faculty approval shall be enclosed with the submission. Papers that have been approved shortly before the deadline are allowed to submit formal documentation at a later stage upon formal motivation.

The winner receives a prize sum of 15 000 SEK. Any taxes are paid by the winner. Authors of the three best papers receive one year free SEEF membership.

The decision about the prize winner is taken by the SEEF board in cooperation with Energiforsk. The prize is awarded during the SEEF membership meeting in September. Participants shall submit their papers by e-mail to the chairman of SEEF, Bo Diczfalusy, at bosse@bodiz.se no later than June 30, 2025. Questions regarding the competition can be posted to that same address.

Winners previous years

The 2024 thesis competition award was given to Isa Diamant for Nudging flexibility, Master’s thesis at Stockholm University.

The study was motivated by the fact that many households have retail contracts which imply that they cannot benefit financially from reducing electricity consumption during peak price hours. Therefore it is relevant to examine other ways of influencing electricity consumption. The paper contains an exemplary discussion of potential pitfalls of the chosen method and possible misinterpretations of the results.

Isa Diamant investigated how to influence household electricity consumption in other ways than through the pricing mechanism. The paper examined how electricity consumption in an apartment building depended on a daily text message informing tenants about the hour with the peak electricity price the following day. The analysis found this text message to reduce electricity consumption during the peak price hour up to 15 percent compared to a control group that did not receive any message.