Personality traits and renewable energy technology adoption: A policy case study from China

Abstract

This paper examines the role played by personality traits on the adoption decision of renewable energy technologies. As a case study, we examine a policy for biogas technology adoption in rural China, and implement a large in-person farm-household survey. We find that farmers with a higher level of openness to experience are more likely to adopt the biogas technology. In contrast, farmers with a lower level of confidence in influencing outcomes they experience are less likely to adopt the biogas technology. In addition, we find that openness seems to affect adoption through the perceived ease of use of the technology. Our findings indicate that including personality traits into adoption models of renewable energy technologies can give us a better understanding of individual differences in the adoption decision, and highlight the importance of energy policies that aim to improve the perception of the ease of use of these technologies.