Analysis of longitudinal survey data has examined the link between intended and actual adoption of solar panels in British households. This shows that although most households that planned to install solar in 2012-2013 have not yet done so in 2021-2022, a serious intention to install solar still makes the likelihood of adoption higher than other factors such as income and environmental perceptions.
New research suggests that intentions to install domestic solar in Britain have not often translated into actual adoption.
The research paper “Do intentions matter when adopting solar panels by households? New evidence”, available in the magazine energy economics, analyzes the relationship between stated intentions and actual adoption of household solar installations in the United Kingdom using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. The survey is considered one of the world’s largest panel surveys, with a sample size of 40,000 households and approximately 100,000 individuals.
The research team, from Macquarie University in Sydney, Charles Darwin University and Queen Mary University of London, used survey data from 2012-13, 2018-19 and 2021-22 and analyzed data on the intention to install household solar energy and the actual adoption of solar energy, taking into account factors such as age, income, material wealth, whether someone rents out their property and perception of the environment.
Rohan Best, from Macquarie University and corresponding author of the report, said pv magazine that a key finding of the study was that while intentions matter for household solar adoption, the relationship between intentions and actual adoption remains nuanced.
The figures in the newspaper show that almost 90% of households that had said in the 2012-2013 survey that they were seriously considering purchasing solar panels had not yet installed solar energy in the 2021-2022 survey. Despite this finding, the paper says solar energy has intentionsunder serious consideration, still exerts a robust positive effect on actual adoption, increasing the likelihood by three to seven percentage points. By comparison, variables such as income contributed zero to two percentage points to the likelihood of adoption.
Additional analysis found that households who rejected the idea of installing solar panels after consideration in 2012-2013 were more likely to have adopted solar energy in 2021-2022 than those who stated they had not considered adopting solar energy. “The fact that we considered solar panels but rejected them seems to make a later adoption more likely than those who had not previously considered solar panels,” Best said.
The researchers also found that the link with environmental perceptions is stronger for solar energy intentions than for solar energy adoption. Elsewhere, income was found to have a small influence on solar adaptation, with the influence of income largely explained by related factors such as wealth and rents. Best told pv magazine This finding points to the need to broaden policy considerations around solar adoption beyond income before suggesting that a separate solar adoption program for renters could be implemented. “Renters make up a substantial share of households in every country, so policies that specifically target renters could have potential everywhere,” he added.
Best also said the survey results highlight that it would be valuable for governments to obtain information on households’ willingness and ability to pay for solar panels, through mechanisms such as an equitable reverse auction trial.
“Reverse auctions have been used in other related contexts, such as utility-scale energy, to pursue cost-effectiveness so that the lowest-cost bid is successful,” Best explains. “In a household context, fairness can be pursued with sub-auctions for subgroups of households based on a household’s economic characteristics, such as their wealth or income, to ensure that households can compete with others in a similar economic position.”
Best also told pv magazine He believes the research findings can be applied to influence policy design in national markets other than Britain, as a lack of information about households’ willingness or ability to pay for solar energy is pervasive across national governments.
“If one government can take new measures to make improvements to some of these challenges, other governments can benefit by following successful trials,” he continued. “If governments do not have information at the household level, subsidy schemes will obviously provide more than is needed for some households, but less than is needed for others. Instead, better targeting of subsidies can help more people at some cost to the government.”
Best added that the results are also relevant to markets related to solar energy adoption, such as the rise of home battery systems. “This is due to the widespread problems with any technology investment, including upfront cost constraints, split incentives for tenants/landlords and shortages of information for governments considering subsidy schemes,” he said.
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