Investigating Effects of Energy-Efficiency Improvement of Two Substitutable Electricity Products on Customers’ Behavior Using Game-Theoretic Approach

Consider two substitutable electricity home-appliances that are produced by two competing manufacturers and are then sold to customers by two agencies. In the considered market, customers’ demands for these products are specified based on the selling prices as well as their energy-efficiency levels. To attract customers, one of the manufacturers aims to invest on the energy-efficiency improvement of his products. In this research, the pricing and energy-efficiency decisions are investigated on the mentioned problem. Moreover, the game theory is applied to set these decisions. In this setting, the problem is analyzed under Nash and Chain-to-chain games. In Nash game, the competition among the members is independently considered, while the products’ supply chains compete in Chain-to-chain game. Finally, the decisions are analyzed and some results and insights are provided. The results indicate that under some conditions, it is possible to attract more customers and obtain higher profits by investing on the energy-efficiency improvement. Due to the competition between both supply chains, the members’ profits in the cooperative mode ​​may be set lower than in the competitive mode. Also, policies that reduce the cost for the energy-efficiency improvement of an electricity appliance will be beneficial for its members.