Solar PV Adoption Research Articles

Policy assistance for adoption of residential solar PV in India: A stakeholder-centric approach for welfare optimization

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the consumer-centric business model for rooftop solar PV installations in India. We explore areas where potential policy interventions may be introduced to improve collective stakeholder benefits and incentivize more domestic consumers to adopt rooftop solar power generation in their premises. The proposed policy framework optimizes Feed-in Tariff (FiT) rates, PV capacities and Average Billing Rates (ABRs) towards maximizing stakeholder benefits. The stakeholders considered are the consumers/prosumers and the utility. Case studies with three residential prosumers of different demand and generation profiles are presented. The models for utility profit and prosumer savings are developed, and a multi-objective problem is formulated with FiT, generation capacity (as a function of demand) and ABR as decision variables. The pareto-optimal front is identified for prosumer and utility benefits and suitable points with reasonable tradeoffs are selected based on sensitivity analysis of the impact on collective welfare. The suitability of prevailing tariff and FiT rates of two Indian utilities namely, MSEDCL and TATA POWER, Delhi are studied, and their impact on prosumer savings and utility profits is brought out. The workflow to fix tariff, FiT and local PV capacities in active residential distribution systems is devised, providing the policymakers an effective decision-making tool.

Modeling and Simulation of the Urban Metabolism of Bogotá

The urban expansion that takes place in developing countries has important impacts on environment. For that reason, it is important to supply household energy needs through renewable energies such as solar PV. Notwithstanding, as the adoption of solar PV panels in households must overcome important barriers different environmental policies are applied around the world, such as feed in tariff and net metering. This paper assesses following scenarios that consider policies to encourage solar PV adoption: a feed in tariff is applied, net metering scheme is applied, none policy is applied. The solar PV adoption is analyzed in terms of installed capacity, adopter households, potential adopter households, solar PV generation, and avoided CO2 emissions. Findings suggest that feed in tariff policy provides the best results to environment, as under this policy the highest levels of CO2 emissions are reached.

When Do Circular Business Models Resolve Barriers to Residential Solar Pv Adoption?

When Do Circular Business Models Resolve Barriers to Residential Solar Pv Adoption?

When do circular business models resolve barriers to residential solar PV adoption?

When do circular business models resolve barriers to residential solar PV adoption?

How does satisfaction of solar PV users enhance their trust in the power grid? - Evidence from PPAPs in rural China

BackgroundPhotovoltaic Poverty Alleviation Projects (PPAPs) have been implemented in Chinese rural areas since 2014. As a new energy policy, PPAPs have played an important role in alleviating rural poverty. However, the adoption of solar PV faces multiple barriers from the perspective of beneficiaries. Therefore, this study aims to discuss and analyze factors affecting beneficiaries’ satisfaction and their trust in State Grid, promoting the adoption of solar PV.MethodsBased on the integrated American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and Unified Theory of Acception and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, this study used the Structural Equation Model (SEM) to reveal how the beneficiaries’ satisfaction enhance their trust in State Grid. The data were obtained from a survey of 928 PPAPs’ beneficiaries by stratified and random sampling in Chinese rural areas.ResultsThe results confirm that environmental perception in this study has positive impact on beneficiaries’ satisfaction. In addition, perceived quality also has a positive effect on beneficiaries’ satisfaction and trust in State Grid; however, social influence has a negative impact on beneficiaries’ satisfaction; behavior expectation can directly promote beneficiaries’ satisfaction while indirectly propel their trust in State Grid.ConclusionsThis study constructs an integrated customer satisfaction model from the perspective of beneficiaries and proposes relevant measures to promote the adoption of solar PV that can be applied to poverty reduction in other developing countries worldwide.

On energy sufficiency and the need for new policies to combat growing inequities in the residential energy sector

The decreasing cost and increasing availability of new technologies capable of improving household energy efficiency, generating and storing renewable energy, and decarbonizing major end use appliances have begun to significantly transform many residential communities across the U.S. Despite these positive developments however, the degree to which disadvantaged communities (DACs) have been able to participate in and benefit from these transformations remains far from equal. Using historical time series data at the zipcode level within Los Angeles County, we document the scale and extent to which DACs continue to be left behind. These data show per-capita levels of electricity and natural gas consumption within DACs that are, on average, about half of those seen within their more affluent counterparts. We argue that the magnitude of these differences reflect a fundamental departure in the use of energy from purposes of sufficiency to those of excess. We introduce a set of forecasts that show the extent to which current inequities in per-capita energy consumption, rates of vehicle electrification, and adoption of rooftop solar PV are likely to persist under the status quo. In conclusion, we suggest that the redistributive investment of public funds for the purpose of accelerating DAC participation in energy system transformations constitutes a socially optimal investment strategy – one which reflects the dramatically higher marginal utility of units of energy consumed at levels of sufficiency rather than excess.

The Impact of self-consumption regulation on individual and community solar PV adoption in Switzerland: an agent-based model

The new Energy Act in Switzerland came into force in January 2018 with very encouraging provisions for community solar PV systems – clearer financial and legal structures under the ZEV (Zusammenschluss zum Eigenverbrauch). However, there is no ex-ante scientific research as to how this new policy will fare, especially with changing electricity prices and falling solar PV costs. Agent-based modelling is a useful technique to simulate the adoption of new technologies and is used for community solar PV adoption in this work. The agent-based model developed in this research uses energy data generated from a district model of nearly 2000 building blocks in the city of Zürich using the City Energy Analyst (CEA). This approach is used to analyse the dynamic levels of adoption of individual and community solar PV systems when modelling factors such as geographical location of agents, environmental attitudes and peer effects, electricity and solar PV prices as well as legal regulations. A scenario without any such regulation is also modelled for comparison. The current work indicates that adoption levels are exceeded with the large building blocks considered, and the ZEV regulations do incentivize community PV system adoption for greater adoption levels at better system economics.

What drives home solar PV uptake? Subsidies, peer effects and visibility in Sweden

Solar PV capacity in Sweden has grown considerably in the last years, however and despite techno-economic potential, its share in the power mix remains rather marginal. There are growing claims about economic and non-monetary factors driving the (non-)adoption of solar PV, but quantitative evidence about potential adopters is rather limited. Our study addresses this gap and investigates subsidy effects and non-economic variables affecting the likelihood to adopt solar PV. It deploys a survey experiment using a web panel of Swedish house owners (N = 208). A set of logistic regression models and corresponding statistical tests are used to examine several hypotheses. Results show that subsidies and peer effects are significant factors driving the likelihood to adopt. Contrary to indications in the literature, the visibility of technology (and related pro-social behaviour) is not significant and interaction effects among analysed factors are irrelevant. Results are statistically robust when controlling for other variables (e.g. age, income) and highlight that environmental awareness plays a positive role. Peer effects mostly come from hearing, but if the source is known both seeing and hearing affect the likelihood to adopt. Our results underline the importance of economic incentives and peer effects in decision-making process. Both policy certainty at the national level and social interactions at the local level need far more attention in policy design.

Community solar as an innovative business model for building-integrated photovoltaics: An experimental analysis with Swiss electricity consumers

A currently pertinent research challenge is to find ways to keep the growth rate of solar power at a high level. The adoption of new technologies, such as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), but also new and innovative business models such as community solar, have both been identified as relevant drivers. However, the adoption of BIPV is still encountering numerous barriers that hinder its more widespread deployment within the solar PV market. The goal of this research effort was to assess whether community solar as a successful business model for the adoption of conventional solar PV could be equally promising in relation to the further adoption of BIPV. For this purpose, we conducted an experimental survey (n = 413) to compare customers’ willingness to buy a community solar offer exclusively associated with BIPV to a community solar offer solely designed with conventional rooftop solar PV. Our results revealed no significant difference between willingness to buy based on our experimental treatment (BIPV vs. conventional PV), indicating that community solar can be a successful distribution channel for the further adoption of BIPV. As findings about specific business models for BIPV are rare, our research creates an important foundation upon which policy makers and project developers can build.

Assessing the Integration of Large-Scale Solar PV to a Nine-Bus Power System

Solar energy has numerous promising features which also includes CO2 reduction. The adoption of large-scale solar PV ensures that demand can be satisfied by utilising renewable energy and reduces the dependency on the conventional non-renewable energy resources. Bringing this energy to widespread consumers requires transmission medium. However, controlling and bringing the harvested energy to the homes and industries is a task which needs attention. According to the various researches, it is deduced that the implementation of large-scale solar PV will have a marked effect on the grid which may lead to instability. The main obstacle to implementation is the distribution and transmission of energy to the recipients. In this study, the efforts are put to design the large-scale solar PV suitable for Malaysia using Pvsyst designing algorithm and the designed LSS PV is studied in a power system analysis tool to analyse the potential difference variation in different buses when connected to the nine-bus power system. Three solar PV models were selected based on their efficiency; among them two best PV model were obtained by conducting PVSyst simulation. The power output respect to time obtained from the simulation is used as inputs for conducting steady state stability analysis on nine bus power system to understand the voltage fluctuations when the LSSPV is integrated to the power system.

New trends in solar: A comparative study assessing the attitudes towards the adoption of rooftop PV

The factors affecting the adoption of conventional solar PV have been broadly addressed in the recent literature. However, it is still to determine the public's acceptance of innovations of the traditional solar PV architecture. Building applied photovoltaic technology (BAPV) is a technological innovation that can be installed over existing building surfaces. This study compares an evaluation of the conscious and subconscious attitudinal, control and normative beliefs of American homeowners when randomly primed with two brochures depicting the purchasing, installation, and commissioning of solar PV systems, developed according to the characteristics of conventional and an adhesive “plug and play” BAPV system. The survey instrument (N = 400 survey participants) was designed in consonance to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).When comparing the direct measures for each solar PV technology, no significant differences were found. This may indicate that for those unfamiliar with PV technology, placing an adhesive backing module on the roof is standard procedure and does not impact purchasing intentions. The evaluation further showed that unlike the subconscious control beliefs, social norms and attitudes have a significant impact on forming intentions to adopt solar PV. The implications of these findings for strategy, policy and future research are explored.

SolarView: Georgia Solar Adoption in Context

The local-national gap is a problem currently plaguing the adoption of emerging technologies targeted at resolving energy transition issues that are characterized by disparities in the adoption of innovations and policies on a local level in response to national policy implementation. These disparities reflect a complex system of technical, economic, social, political, and ecological factors linked to the perceptions held by communities and how they see energy development and national/global policy goals. This dataset is an attempt to bridge the local-national gap regarding solar PV adoption in the State of Georgia (U.S.) by aggregating variables from seven different publicly-available sources. The objective of this activity was to design a resource that would help researchers interested in the context underlying solar adoption on the local scale of governance (e.g., the county level). The SolarView database includes information necessary for informing policy-making activities such as solar installation information, a historical county zip code directory, county-level census data, housing value indexes, renewable energy incentive totals, PV rooftop suitability percentages, and utility rates. As this is a database from multiple sources, incomplete data entries are noted.

Motivations and Communication Effectiveness of Solar Energy Adoption among Malaysian Household Consumers

Objective - This paper aims to explain the motivational drives underlying the use of solar energy and to examine the effectiveness of integrated marketing communication tools in the dissemination of solar PV information among household consumers in Malaysia. Methodology/Technique - Data was collected using in-depth interviews, participant observations, and on-site visits to participants' homes. Sixteen private household consumers who were registered with the Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA), and who were located in different regions of several states in Malaysia, were selected using purposive and snowball sampling. The data was then transcribed and analyzed by identifying the themes and commonalities of the respondents. Findings - The findings indicate that there are 4 motivating factors that lead to solar PV adoption. Those are: economic, societal well-being, environmental well-being, and knowledge/cognition. The integrated marketing communication tools found to be most effective include mass media (television), electronic media (including social media and websites) and interpersonal sources. Novelty - The study elaborates on the motivations underlying the adoption of solar energy based on the real experiences of solar PV users. The study also assesses the effectiveness of integrated marketing communication tools used by various stakeholders in promoting solar PV systems based on user feedback. Type of Paper - Empirical Keywords: Integrated Marketing Communication; Motivation; Residential; Solar Photovoltaic System; Sustainable Marketing. JEL Classification: M31, O33

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.

Assessment of policy based residential solar PV potential using GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis: A case study of Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

The Postal Code Rose policy is part of the 2013 Dutch Energy Agreement of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands, introduced to support sustainable energy growth. This paper presents a case of the Dutch Postal code Rose policy by developing a method combining geographical information systems (GIS) and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), which allows determining the solar photovoltaic potential when fully applying this policy. As case study, the city of Apeldoorn in the Gelderland province of the Netherlands was selected. The research evaluates the technical potential of the city and then applies it to the Postal code Rose framework by using social criteria. The social criteria comprise of the most important factors that play a role in the adoption of solar PV. The results showed that by fully applying the Post Code Rose policy ~77% of the total electricity demand of Apeldoorn could be covered by solar PV.

Solar PV where the sun doesn’t shine: Estimating the economic impacts of support schemes for residential PV with detailed net demand profiling

Countries with low irradiation and solar PV adoption rates are increasingly considering policy support for solar PV, although consumer electricity demand and solar generation profiles are often mismatched. This paper presents a methodology for policymakers in such conditions to examine more precisely the financial performance of residential solar PV from the consumer perspective as part of an ex-ante policy assessment. We model a range of prospective policy scenarios and compare policy mechanisms that compensate homeowners for generation, those that reduce their upfront costs, and those that assist with financing, using Ireland as a case study. The results confirm the intuitive notion that more generous financial remuneration schemes provide quicker payback; however we observe that in low irradiance regions there is little difference between upfront grants and feed-in-tariffs to accelerate payback timeframes. We also show the importance of retail tariff structure in consumer payback for solar PV systems, with one-part tariffs generating shorter paybacks than two-part tariff structures, although the latter is more likely to secure revenue for electricity infrastructure investment. Drawing from this analysis, the paper proposes some options for the design of policy supports and tariff structures to deliver a sustainable residential renewable electricity system in low-irradiance regions.

Solar PV adoption: Incentives and behaviour

Solar PV adoption: Incentives and behaviour

Serious Games in Breaking Informational Barriers in Solar Energy

The adoption of solar energy – widely assumed to be pivotal to a new energy transformation – has been hindered by persistent information gaps. Recent literature states the importance of using behavioral science to address the persistent gaps between the technical potential of low carbon technologies and the actual adoption of these technologies. With the goal of addressing this important knowledge gap, this study investigates the efficacy of serious games – games with a primary purpose other than entertainment – to overcome informational and perceptive barriers to broader adoption of solar PV in the residential sector. Using a trivia-style game platform, we assess the impact of serious games on intentions and behavior toward solar energy in residential energy customers, applying the Theory of Planned Behavior (attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control). Our findings indicate that serious games are effective in bridging the information gap and enabling participants to feel agency, thus could prove an effective intervention strategy applied at large scale.

Growth and competition in renewable energy industries: Insights from an integrated assessment model with strategic firms

This article describes the development, implementation, and application of an integrated assessment modeling framework featuring renewable technology markets with producers engaged in Cournot competition. Scenario results reveal how climate policy and inter-firm learning spillovers interact with market structure to affect wind and solar PV prices, adoption, producer profits, and carbon emissions. Competitive markets yield consistently lower markups than concentrated markets, leading to significantly more adoption and lower emissions. Widespread solar PV adoption is a key component of the largest emissions reductions, but this requires substantial price reductions that only occur if the solar PV market is competitive and learning spills over across producers. Whether a leading firm has a profit incentive to facilitate or obstruct learning spillovers depends on the availability of cost-competitive substitute technologies. If such a substitute exists, the firm prefers strong spillovers that help its industry compete against the substitute; if not, the firm prefers weak spillovers that prevent competitors in its industry from seizing market share. The relationship between price and cumulative capacity is endogenous in the modeling framework. Regression analysis of scenario results yields price learning rates which are similar to unit production cost learning rates in competitive markets, but substantially lower – even negative – in concentrated markets.

A segmentation analysis: the case of photovoltaic in the Netherlands

The paper presents the results of a survey analysis into the adoption and non-adoption of solar PV in Dutch households. It is based on a survey under 817 households undertaken in 2012. Households are aggregated into 4 groups based on whether the adoption is voluntary or involuntary (when people buy a house with solar panels) and whether or not the household can be considered a potential adopter or rejecter. For these four groups, we study and compare the characteristics of adopters and nonadopters of solar PV. Non-adopters are broken down in two groups: rejecters and potential adopters. The segmentation analysis gives more specific insight in the adoption of PV but can also be used to insight in the adoption of other technologies and/or in other countries.