Social capital and rural residential rooftop solar energy diffusion—Evidence from Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract

The mobilisation of diverse social capital is critical to the promotion of renewable energy technologies. In this paper, we construct a model to explore the role of rooted and multidimensional social capital on villagers' willingness to adopt residential rooftop PV (RRPV). We also identified the characteristics of rural information transmission and opinion leaders in this process. The results show that (1) structural and relational social capital promote villagers' willingness to adopt RRPV through two mechanisms: information transmission and social influence, with the former being stronger. (2) Structural social capital tends to play a role through villagers' usefulness, benefits and environmental perceptions, whereas relational social capital tends to focus on ease of use, cost and risk perceptions. In addition, villagers' psychological perceptions play a mediating role. (3) There are multiple opinion leaders in the same village who are no longer respected elders but have heterogeneous information. Factories outside and entertainment places inside the village are also identified as sources of information. (4) The information transmission network of rural RRPV shows an obvious ripple effect, and structural holes widely exist. This study provides rich policy implications for rural renewable energy promotion and energy transition in China and other developing countries.