Uptake Of Solar Energy Research Articles

Mass Media’s Role in Stimulating Interest in Solar Energy Uptake: Examination of Feed-in Tariff News Coverage in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's solar energy adoption lags behind its global peers, although the findings of numerous studies show that the city can take up the power on a bigger scale. This manuscript contributes to the research stream by investigating the role that mass media could play in engaging citizens on more healthy debates of solar energy and the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme, in which households and institutions are paid for the energy they generate and is the government's first initiative on renewable energy involving the members of the public. Applying the theories of media framing, media hegemony, and public sphere, I conducted a content analysis of 315 Hong Kong newspaper articles on FiT spanning 55 months since the scheme's implementation. The results indicate that a majority of the articles are framed from enterprises' perspectives, implying that corporate hegemonic power has penetrated through news; criticisms of FiT are slanted towards the economic aspects, such as the financial incentive instead of the environmental and scientific reasons, undermining citizens' comprehension of the importance of the scheme; Chinese state-owned media were more critical on FiT than the pro-democracy one, indicating that politics does not matter to the issue. This study proposes that the media should play a watchdog role by monitoring institutions' ongoing solar power projects and their use of FiT-generated funds to perform the educational function to enhance citizens' scientific literacy on renewable energy to create a thriving public sphere for conversation and debate on the subject.

Regional disparity of residential solar panel diffusion in Australia: The roles of socio-economic factors

In following a pathway towards decarbonisation of energy systems, Australia has successfully accelerated the adoption of solar technologies, with approximately three million small-scale distributed solar panels installed on rooftops of Australian homes. This study, in seeking to explore the effects of socio-economic variables on solar energy uptake, firstly explored the historical diffusions of household solar panels across 2668 Australian postcode areas, and classified the postal areas into three groups through K-means clustering according to their solar penetration status, namely the regions with low, medium, and high solar-level. Subsequently, this study carried out a hierarchical regression analysis investigating the significant socio-economic factors impacting solar adoption in each of the three region types. The results indicate that the three solar groups have different significant impacting factors. In addition, factors, such as detached house and multi-person household, positively contribute to the solar panel uptake, while factors like population density and middle-aged people provide negative contributes. The findings suggest new directions that could be taken for future policies and viable business models, and that specific measures for the varied socio-economic factors to be considered at different stages of solar energy development.

Circular economy strategies as enablers for solar PV adoption in organizational market segments

While the uptake of solar energy has been a success in recent years, PV panels will cause an increasing waste problem in the coming decades. At the same time, it is important to further stimulate investments in solar energy solutions to reach climate ambitions and the Sustainable Development Goals. In this paper, we investigate when circular economy strategies and business models can enable solar energy investments while mitigating its waste problem. We use focus group data from Flanders (Belgium) to address the demand side of different market segments outside the dominant residential market of homeowners. These markets have in common that they are governed or mediated by organizations and contain business-to-business and business-to-government features. Our results show that organizational solar PV investments are mainly driven by lower energy costs, independence, and secured access to energy, and that the uptake of circular solar solutions mainly depends on a viable business case. In most cases, a lack of market development and organizational boundary conditions limit the enabling potential of circular solar options. Given the current energy crisis and challenges stemming from the electrification of mobility, we recommend policy makers to invest in regulatory frameworks that support the implementation of innovative data technologies that enable both improved circularity outcomes and lower operational expenditures.

Enabling Uptake of Off‐Grid Solar: The Case of Mozambique

Global action on clean energy access is needed to resolve the trilemma of alleviating energy poverty, ensuring energy security, and rapid action on climate change. The uptake of solar energy is an urgent policy and market priority in Sub‐Saharan Africa, given its solar potential. Yet for some developing economies such as Mozambique, action on solar implementation in isolated rural communities remains low. We assess the barriers and enablers to off‐grid solar uptake, finding that government‐manufactured solar PV panels remain prohibitively expensive, while cheaper imported panels remain unreliable due to a lack of clear market regulation and product standards. Government action on electricity access must bring together a regulatory framework for solar imports, open market access through public–private partnership, and enhance energy governance to improve the cost efficiency of “last mile access” for vulnerable rural people.

Barriers to energy transition: A case of Botswana

Low carbon development involves profound changes in existing countries’ governing structures. Recent studies have shown that significant benefits to low carbon development in developing countries can be achieved from energy sector transitions. This paper argues that energy transition in Botswana which involves reduction of dependence on coal-generated electricity and increase in the uptake of solar energy can only be achieved through regime-based reconfigurations driven by deliberate government action and political will. It draws on energy transition literature to examine whether existing policy instruments can drive the desired transition. Through in-depth qualitative analysis, it identifies barriers that impede transition attempts to date. As an effort to overcome regime level barriers in particular, the paper proposes several low-cost changes in the existing electricity regime to facilitate a wider energy sector transformation.

Alternatives for small, medium and micro scale enterprises participation in the renewable energy industry – small scale embedded generation review

Over the past decade South Africa has seen an increase in the uptake of solar energy as a result of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme, which led to a sharp increase in procurement of utility-scale solar PV projects. On the other hand, the load shedding which was implemented by the national power utility in response to electricity supply and demand challenges resulted in the rise in procurement of small-scale embedded generation solar PV systems. While the REIPPPP has had minimal impact in terms of incorporating small, medium and micro scale enterprises (SMMEs) in the renewable energy value chain, there is a significant opportunity for SMMEs in the small scale embedded generation (SSEG) market segment. This study investigated the challenges and opportunities for SMMEs in SSEG.