Do people really want renewable energy? Who wants renewable energy?: Discrete choice model of reference-dependent preference in South Korea

Abstract

Renewable energy is gaining more attention than before in terms of tackling climate change and ensuring the public safety. The South Korean (hereafter, Korean) government has announced various policies to expand renewable energy sources and reduce the share of nuclear and coal-fired power. Since the energy sources are directly related to the lives of people, it is important to identify the public's acceptability of changes in the energy mix. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze public preferences for changes in the shares of energy sources. For estimation of preference, this study used a mixed logit model that reflects the reference point to consider the relative shares of the energy sources and the relative level of attributes. In addition, this study used a hierarchical Bayesian logit model to examine whether the public characteristics result in any preference difference on the electricity service attributes. The results show that the Korean public's acceptability is high for renewable energy source expansion policy. Based on the analysis, this study found that the respondent's level of education had a significant effect on the preference for increase of renewable energy sources.