Adoption Of Renewable Energy Technologies Research Articles

A systems approach to examining the drivers and barriers of renewable energy technology adoption in the hotel sector in Queensland, Australia

The adoption of renewable energy technology (RET) in the hotel sector is low, despite the technology's potential to reduce a hotel's energy consumption and carbon emissions. Previous research has explored selected aspects of RET adoption in hotels, but a comprehensive and systemic analysis is missing. This research uses a systems approach, which allows examination of a wide range of dynamics and complexities, including feedback mechanisms that influence system behaviour over time. The model was developed using the structural analysis method and causal loop diagramming in conjunction with theories of diffusion and patterns of innovation. The aim was to enhance our understanding of the hotel energy system, with a focus on drivers and barriers to RET adoption in the sector. The results demonstrate that the uptake of RET by hotels reflects an interplay between incentive policy, hotel owner/manager perceptions of RET, tourists' behaviour, technology advancement and electricity grid price. The analysis also uncovers the dynamics of key drivers that, under different circumstances, can also become barriers. The insights generated from the analysis validate the use of systems thinking to capture the complexities and dynamics of interactions.

Renewable Energy: Scenario and Model of Development

The article is a study of the situation on the global solar energy market and the features of designing and planning power plants based on variable renewable energy, and provides a SWOT analysis and conditions for including renewable energy into the fuel and energy balance of the republic, and also factors affecting the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies. In addition, the scenario and model of developing renewable energy in Uzbekistan are suggested.

Advancement of Renewable Energy Technology in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region: Prevailing Schemes, Consumer Feedback, Barriers and Future Scope

Present manuscript is a statistics-based approach towards the progression of Renewable Energy Technologies in the financial capital of India, Mumbai and the metro-city ecosystem that is based around Mumbai termed as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Factors which present themselves as bottlenecks and roadblocks towards the adoption of Renewable Energy Technologies by the populace of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region have been statistically analysed. 53% responses were in favour of installing Renewable Energy Technology however, 63% respondents had no awareness regarding Renewable Energy Schemes formulated by the Government of India. The authors of this manuscript have found parameters such as origin, awareness, educational background, usage of electricity and support for Renewable Energy Technology are some of the factors which are taken in account in this manuscript. Corrective measures have also been suggested to the authorities by the authors of this paper so that full utilization of schemes and subsidies provided by the Government of India to the citizens of the Mumbai Metropolitan region may be adopted and used to make India a negative carbon footprint nation.

What's wrong with science? Has science become a (contested) belief system?

Purpose: Disagreement with scientific evidence is manifest across a wide range of issues impacting on health, well-being and environmental issues. The purpose of this discussion is to review the nature of the disagreement across three broad sectors - climate change, vaccine hesitancy and adoption of renewable energy technology - highlighting commonalities in the rejection of scientific consensus and in the way opposition is organised and communicated. Approach: The paper reviews the literature relating to scientific disagreement, the challenges of scientific certainty, weaknesses in relevant theories, and a range of challenges to effective scientific communication. A brief analysis of government and sceptics’ websites is provided to illustrate these challenges. Findings: There are distinct differences between the approaches taken by governmental communicators and sceptics, with implications for the way that risk and uncertainty should be communicated in future. Recommendations for improving communications to lay audiences are provided together with directions for future research.

Forecasting of advertising effectiveness for renewable energy technologies: A neural network analysis

The adoption of renewable energy technologies (RETs) as a sustainable practice in the residential construction sector depends on promotional efforts. With a modeling-based contribution, this research aims to analyze advertising effectiveness in the context of RETs adoption regarding solar water heaters. The study is based on a survey of 398 Iranian citizens. A neural network analysis was employed to identify advertising effectiveness in terms of the AIDA framework. The results indicated that the neural network is able to predict the relationships among advertising effectiveness indices; namely attention, interest, desire in the RETs setting, and action. According to the neural network analysis, attention was found to be the most significant predictor of action, followed by interest and desire.

Are Renewables as Friendly to Humans as to the Environment?: A Social Life Cycle Assessment of Renewable Electricity

The adoption of renewable energy technologies in developing nations is recognized to have positive environmental impacts; however, what are their effects on the electricity supply chain workers? This article provides a quantitative analysis on this question through a relatively new framework called social life cycle assessment, taking Malaysia as a case example. Impact assessments by the authors show that electricity from renewables has greater adverse impacts on supply chain workers than the conventional electricity mix: Electricity production with biomass requires 127% longer labor hours per unit-electricity under the risk of human rights violations, while the solar photovoltaic requires 95% longer labor hours per unit-electricity. However, our assessment also indicates that renewables have less impacts per dollar-spent. In fact, the impact of solar photovoltaic would be 60% less than the conventional mix when it attains grid parity. The answer of “are renewables as friendly to humans as to the environment?” is “not-yet, but eventually.”

Geographical proximity and renewable energy diffusion: An empirical approach

In an era where achieving both economic growth and environmental sustainability is paramount, the role of technology diffusion remains an important one. Recent literature explores the link between geographical proximity and the adoption and diffusion of climate change adaptation policies. However, it has generally focused on a restricted set of developed countries and focused on the diffusion of policy instrument rather than the outcome of the policies. In this paper, we argue that domestic intensity of adoption of renewable energy technologies is likely to be affected by the adoption pattern in neighbouring countries. Additionally, this effect is likely to be stronger when important trade partners are intensive adopters of renewable energies. To test these hypotheses, we construct an index that captures a distance-weighted measure of intensity of renewable energies in other countries and apply a fixed effects framework to a panel of up to 116 countries over the (1980–2012) period. Our results confirm the existence of a geographic spill-over effect on the intensity of adoption of renewable energy technologies. Moreover, this effect is stronger when intensive adopters of renewable energies are also important trading partners, highlighting the relevance of trade channel as a potential catalyst of the diffusion of renewable energies across countries.

Investing in Renewable Energy: Reconciling Regional Policy With Renewable Energy Growth

To address the effects of climate change, it is imperative for economies to proactively invest in, and deploy, low carbon energy technologies to meet current energy demands. To this effect, several states in the U.S. have implemented policies to incentivize the growth of renewable energy technologies. One of these policies is the renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which mandates that a certain percentage of the total electricity sales of utilities be sourced from renewable energy sources. This paper examines the effectiveness of these policies in driving the growth of specific renewable technologies across different regional transmission organizations (RTOs). It evaluates the adoption of renewable energy technologies across these RTOs to provide insights on the varying successes of these policies. The paper develops a ranking system for the correlations between the strength of RPS and renewable energy capacity growth across the RTOs. Two central observations emerge. First, despite the presence of positive correlations between RPS and renewable energy capacity additions, the capacity growth of renewable energy is not monotonic in time as technological differences characterize regional attributes. Second, the technology returns on RPS mandates are location-specific. Managerial Relevance Statement . The value proposition of this paper is the information it provides to energy technology managers that are constantly faced with tough decisions on what technologies to invest in and where to invest in such technologies. The benefits to be derived from such investments and their enhancement of societal welfare are useful to policymakers in the crafting of these instruments. Thus, understanding the effectiveness of strategies to enhance renewable energy adoption will help to reinforce our knowledge about what works and where. While several policy pronouncements have catalyzed the growth of renewable energy technologies, the capacity increase of these technologies has not been uniformly distributed. This stems from the disparities in energy technology investments because of the conundrum that technology managers, developers and investors face. This ambivalence of investment outcomes impacts the intent to embrace renewable energy. Of relevance to the practice of engineering management, this paper suggests the following: (i) there is a very strong support for the growth of wind technology across all the regions especially where there is abundance of the resource. For example, the ERCOT region is fertile for wind growth; (ii) solar photovoltaic technology has not seen as much growth as wind despite the provision of alternative markets for solar credits. However, there are strong indications that the policy enacted in regions including CAISO, ISONE and some non-RTO states in the north-west will provide investors and technology developers with more incentives for solar technology investments; (iii) It is counterintuitive, but significant, for technology developers and managers to know that investing in renewable energy technology is not always a function of the strength of the policies in the regions. Specifically, developers will do well to consider non-RTO states, or states without such mandates, for their technology investments; (iv) For investors considering where the policies have been effective, then considerations should be given to regions including PJM, ERCOT, and MISO.

Socio-Economic Factors of Small Hydropower and Biogas Plants and their Implications for Rural Energy Poverty Alleviation in Kirinyaga, Kenya

Energy is essential for sustainable development and for improving the socio-economic welfare of a community. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from severe rural energy poverty and minimal access to modern energy services. Adoption of renewable energy technologies is often viewed as a way to alleviate rural energy poverty, but uptake is slow. Socio-economic factors, mainly household income, electricity access, fuels used for cooking, and land tenure, influence adoption of renewable energy technologies. This paper assesses the contribution of small hydropower and biogas technologies in alleviating rural energy poverty in Kirinyaga County, Kenya, where the majority of the population relies on traditional sources of energy. A case study research design was used, with a sample size of 178. Data was collected using a questionnaire survey, the review of project documents, and interviews. Five indicators were used to assess energy poverty. The results indicate medium to low energy poverty and energy stacking; with reliance on traditional sources of energy. Socio-economic factors influence adoption of SHP and biogas. Therefore, adoption of renewable energy technologies does not alleviate rural energy poverty because SHP and biogas are used to supplement rather than replace the use of traditional fuels.

The use of 3D GIS to analyse the influence of urban context on buildings’ solar energy potential

Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO₂ emissions in the European Union. To bring these levels down, governments are striving to promote a more efficient use of energy resources and an increase adoption of renewable energy technologies, as photovoltaic panels and solar collectors on the building envelopes. To fully exploit the potential of these technologies, a detailed analysis of the incident solar radiation on buildings roofs and facades is mandatory taking into account the geographical and urban environments.Three solar radiation tools, in association with two different modelling approaches (2.5D and 3D) handled by a 3D GIS tool, were applied to a city block of downtown Lisbon for both the winter and summer solstices and for different levels of detail of the surrounding context.The study showed that both built surroundings and topographic relief have an important impact on solar potential of buildings in urban areas. An average difference of about 30% in the results was observed between the simulations with and without the geographical and the urban environments included. The study also showed that the 3D approach has high potential to fully evaluate solar access in complex urban layouts, for accounting the irradiation of all sun-exposed surfaces of the buildings.

Towards the establishment of renewable energy technologies' market: An assessment of public acceptance and use in Pakistan

Adoption of renewable energy technologies is a complex and intricate process affected by a multitude of factors. The objective of this study is to examine the factors influencing consumers' intention to use renewable energy technologies for household usage in Pakistan. In order to understand the adoption behaviour, we have extended the actual framework of the theory of planned behaviour by integrating three additional factors, i.e., environmental concern, cost, and awareness. The findings of this research are based on primary data collected from 244 households in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi through survey questionnaires. The proposed hypotheses were then tested and analysed using structural equation modelling. The results reveal that factors such as subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and attitude positively influence consumers' intention to use renewable energy technologies in Pakistan, whereas cost has the opposite effect. Interestingly, awareness and environmental concern were found to be insignificant. The results of this study highlight the need to increase environmental awareness, frame innovative financing mechanisms, and address the benefits that renewable energy technology offers, all through an integrative and coherent effort.

Review of Renewable Energy Technologies in Zambian Households: Capacities and Barriers Affecting Successful Deployment

Modern renewable energy has been hailed as one of the prerequisites for fostering green growth and the achievement of sustainable development. Despite efforts to promote the use of renewable energy in households, its adoption has remained fairly low, hence the need for an inquiry into household capabilities needed for the acquisition and adoption of renewable energy technologies. This paper reviews the requisite capacities of households for the adoption of renewable energy services and expounds on some of the barriers hampering renewable energy among households. It takes a desk research approach to analyse the capacities which should be possessed by Zambian households and possible barriers constraining the widespread deployment of renewable energy technologies. The findings reveal that there is a need for a broader, multidimensional understanding of access to renewable energy in order for deployment to be effective. Barriers to the successful adoption of clean energy technologies include underserved populations, policy inadequacies; an underexploited renewable energy sector and heavy reliance on a service-challenged hydro-power utility. Since most of the aforementioned challenges are institutional in nature, the paper concludes with a recommendation of a baseline assessment to understand knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and drivers for renewable energy technology adoption among households.

Revisiting the Jevons Paradox of Energy Economics: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh and India

The significance of enhancement in energy consumption in order to boost the respective national output level within any economy cannot be denied. Moreover, the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development agenda had also called for an improvement in efficiency of energy-use through the adoption of renewable energy technologies in particular, with the ultimate goal of attaining sustainability in global energy supply. The rationale behind escalating the associated efficiency levels is that by doing so the level of energy consumption can be reduced which would complement the direct energy conservation policies as well. However, there has been ambiguity with regard to the precise relationship between efficiency in use and consumption of energy. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the energy efficiency-energy consumption nexus in context of the two South Asian Lower Middle-Income Countries, Bangladesh and India. The study makes a novel attempt at investigating the ‘Jevons Paradox’ by disaggregating energy consumption into primary and secondary energy consumption and by expressing each of these as separate functions of energy-use efficiency and other control variables. This study considers annual data stemming from 1990 to 2016 and employs Fixed Effects (FE), Random Effects (RE) and Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) panel regression tools for robustness check. Furthermore, the paper also analyses the long run causal linkages using the Granger causality tests. In light of the estimated results, evidence of a Jevons paradox is found in the context of non-renewable energy, electricity and coal consumption. In addition, no long-run causal association is found to exist.

Understanding Stakeholders’ Views and the Influence of the Socio-Cultural Dimension on the Adoption of Solar Energy Technology in Lebanon

In light of climate change and global commitments, a great amount of programs and policies have been implemented by governments targeting the diffusion of renewable energy technologies. Successful diffusion relies on the understanding, persuasion and acceptance by consumers and other stakeholders. This article investigates the views, roles and influence of stakeholders on the adoption of solar energy technology in Lebanon. The main research questions are: What are the stakeholders’ views, roles and influence on the diffusion process of solar energy technologies? And are specific socio-cultural factors therein that influenced adoption? The influence of different stakeholders (end users, public representatives, banking sector, suppliers, consultants and NGOs) was assessed via qualitative data analysis, in particular semi-structured interviews. Our research perspective combines grounded and critical theoretical approaches with a case study research design allowing for a semi-inductive process to elaborate and complement new insights to the current body of literature on adoption of clean technology innovation, with a particular focus on the socio-cultural dimension. The results show that contextual factors, specifically related to the social, cultural, geographic and market dimensions, played a crucial role in shaping market development, especially in relation to the uptake of solar energy technology by different consumer groups. Based on the results of this study we argue that more scholarly attention should be awarded to the influence of the socio-cultural dimension and stakeholders’ perspectives on adoption of renewable energy technology.

Modeling the Impact of Innovation Diffusion on Solar PV Adoption in City Neighborhoods

We present an agent-based model for Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) in Qatar city neighborhoods based on the spread of information in social networks within city-neighborhoods. Information diffusion patterns in household and Twitter networks are combined to model the rate of diffusion of RET innovation. The resulting approach provides a methodology for capturing how RET innovation diffusion in online social networks and city neighborhood networks may jointly influence the residential adoption of renewable energy technologies. We demonstrate an application of this approach to an agent-based model of solar PV adoption in Qatar.

The impact of energy security risks on energy consumption

This study assesses the impact of energy security risks on energy consumption by analysing a panel of data from 64 countries from 1980 to 2014. We find that rising energy security risk increases oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and wind power consumption and decreases hydroelectric power consumption. We also find that countries with greater energy security risks have increased the relative share of wind energy in their total energy consumption. These results suggest that energy security risk leads to diversified energy consumption through the adoption of renewable energy technologies. Furthermore, gross domestic product and population growth also result in overall increases in the energy consumption levels. This result is consistent with the results found in the existing literature. However, when we analyse the consumption of specific energy sources, solar and wind power consumption levels are shown to decrease in response to population growth.

Climate Resilient Green Economy: Prospects

A new political climate has grown in many countries around the world, thanks to the strong base in science and widening public awareness of climate change and its risks. Clean energy revolution has been taking place all over the developed countries, underscored by the steady expansion of the renewable energy sector. The adoption of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) constituted a win-win situation, as renewable is not only green and job-generating, but also sustainable with a higher environmental benefit. Renewable fuels such as wind, solar, biomass, tides, and geothermal are inexhaustible, indigenous and are often free as a resource. They just need to be captured efficiently and transformed into electricity, hydrogen or clean transportation fuels. The renewable energy sources have hardly any carbon footprint and are environment-friendly and do not require environmentally-damaging mining and transport. The paper highlights various sources of clean energy in the context of sustainable economic, environmental, and social development besides focusing on the importance of renewable energy in the modern world.

Socio-Economic Impact Analysis of Introduction of Renewable Energy Technologies in Five Tribal Villages of Gujarat (India)*

Renewable energy (RE) technologies are clean sources of energy that have a much lower environmental impact than conventional energy technologies. Growing scarcity of non-renewable resources and consequent increasing cost and inaccessibility of conventional energy technologies at various remote locations have paved the way to renewable energy technologies. In this context, the present study was undertaken to analyze the extent of adoption of renewable energy technologies and impacts of renewable energy technologies in selected tribal villages of Gujarat state (India). The benefits accrued by the rural households and constraints faced by them have been aptly assessed in the paper. The study finds that there is high demand for renewable energy technology based devices such as Solar Lantern, Glass Roof Tiles, Side fed Biomass Cook Stove and Biogas Plant in survey areas. However, inadequate supply, lack of sufficient service points, unavailability of spare parts/accessories of these devices in the local market, sometime delay in repairing of the devices, long procedure in getting the damaged devices repaired have resulted in lower adoption rate in these areas. There is also a need of improving some technologies such as solar dryer and solar cooker so as to improve the adoption rate. Efforts should also be made by Government, NGOs, and related organization to increase awareness among the people to use renewable energy devices.

The impact of energy security risks on energy consumption

This study assesses the impact of energy security risks on energy consumption by analysing a panel of data from 64 countries from 1980 to 2014. We find that rising energy security risk increases oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and wind power consumption and decreases hydroelectric power consumption. We also find that countries with greater energy security risks have increased the relative share of wind energy in their total energy consumption. These results suggest that energy security risk leads to diversified energy consumption through the adoption of renewable energy technologies. Furthermore, gross domestic product and population growth also result in overall increases in the energy consumption levels. This result is consistent with the results found in the existing literature. However, when we analyse the consumption of specific energy sources, solar and wind power consumption levels are shown to decrease in response to population growth.

Decarbonizing the Boardroom? Aligning Electric Utility Executive Compensation With Climate Change Incentives

Despite the drastic reversal of decarbonization effort by the Trump administration, the majority of U.S. states continue policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing renewable energy technology (RET) deployment. Although electrical power utilities are required and/or encouraged to comply with these policies, their executives lack direct incentives to do so. In this study, a novel incentive mechanism is evaluated for aligning utility executive compensation with such policies. First, an overview is provided on chief executive officer (CEO) pay and the GHG emissions of utilities. The relationship between GHG emissions, renewable energy diversification, and CEO pay is examined using the case study of three of the largest electric utilities in Michigan. The results show that the regulated utility market is not consistently rewarding CEOs with higher compensation for decreasing GHG emissions and that both an approach incentivizing RETs adoption and an approach encouraging GHG emissions have deficiencies. A combined approach is then analyzed that results in a compensation equation allowing for utility executives to receive incentive pay for reducing overall emissions and increasing renewable generation. The results indicate that by careful calibration of the proposed incentive equations the harmful effects of emissions can be prevented through CEO incentive pay.