Diffusion of residential RT solar – is lack of funds the real issue?

Abstract

Purpose Rooftop (RT) solar in India has grown to 4.4 GW by the end of March 2019 – but it is still under-performing vs national solar mission target of 40 GW. This paper aims to understand the drivers of the purchase intent (PI) for RT solar will enable policymakers to improve the penetration of this new and promising green technology. Design/methodology/approach This paper builds a structural equation modeling model for triggers of the PI of a residential RT solar photo-voltaic (SPV) buyer. The empirical study conducted in Delhi/national capital region of Delhi and Bangalore validates the role of the Unified Theory of Acceptance & Use of Technology (2) constructs in the PI of the residential sector RT solar buyer in India. It also explores a few myths – prior green habits have no relationship with the PI and self-efficacy has been dropped in the final path analysis to improve model fit. Findings This research explores the myth that financial self-efficacy – or prospect’s perception of his capability to fund (through own or credit finance) – will mean that the prospect is likely to be more conducive to an SPV purchase in the city contexts studied. It is more relevant for policymakers to work on factors such as social influence/ beliefs, effort expectancy and price-value beliefs. Other relevant triggers are performance expectancy, hedonic motivation and environmental beliefs. Originality/value This is the first Indian research leveraging multi-city survey of actual households build an empirically verified consumer behavior model for RT SPV in the residential sector leveraging the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 constructs.

Problems of adoption of solar power and subsequent switching behavior: an exploration in India

“…The significant (þve) effect of social influence on the consumer's behavioral intentions (H3) signifies that there is a strong social factor in terms of indicating status which may work in favor of the consumers to use solar power generators. This supports the findings related to the effects of social norms on the adoption of alternative energy sources (Wang et al, 2011;Aggarwal et al, 2019aAggarwal et al, , 2019bAggarwal et al, , 2020.…”

“…Thereby it addresses the call for research in the topic of alternative energy adoption exploring the consumer-related variables (Crosbie, 2006;Makovich, 2011). Our findings find support for the relevance of technology acceptance (Kapoor and Dwivedi, 2020;Aggarwal et al, 2019aAggarwal et al, , 2019bAggarwal et al, , 2020. The study also supports that the UTAUT constructs, which are mainly psychological/attitudinal, would have a strong influence on the intentions to use technology (Lee, Kozar and Larsen, 2003;Yang and Yoo, 2004;Venkatesh, et al, 2012).…”

“…In the present study, we try to explain the adoption and switch over to solar energy sources using the TAM. The TAM and its augmentations such as the UTAUT (and UTAUT 2) have been the most applied theories to explain the adoption of alternative energy as it is more advanced than the other models (Aggarwal et al, 2019a(Aggarwal et al, , 2019b(Aggarwal et al, , 2020Anthony et al, 2020). Hence, we use this in the present study.…”

“…While, a significant amount of research has explored both the micro and macro-economic factors that may influence the adoption of solar power (Carstens and Cunha, 2018), there has been relatively less investigation into the consumer level factors that influence solar power adoption at the household level. Researchers in this area have explored the role of the UTAUT constructs in solar power adoption at the household level (Kapoor and Dwivedi, 2020;Aggarwal et al, 2019aAggarwal et al, , 2019bAggarwal et al, , 2020. All the studies have found interesting additions (other than the influence of adoption-related factors) to influence household level adoption of solar energy such as the perceived price, availability of funds and recommendation by the architect.…”

“…For example, Mizobuchi and Takeuchi (2013) investigated the effect of financial influencers, such as income and incentives and non-financial influencers, such as social norms, on household electricity-saving behavior in Japan. The factors at the consumer level, mainly related to consumer attitudes and psychology have been explored relatively less (Kapoor and Dwivedi, 2020;Aggarwal et al, 2019aAggarwal et al, , 2019bAggarwal et al, , 2020. However, the mentioned studies have been restricted to adoption intentions and purchase intentions and not the subsequent switching behavior.…”