Motives to adopt renewable energy technologies : evidence from Sweden

• The diffusion of renewable energy technologies (RETs) has to speed up for countries to reach their, often ambitious, targets for renewable energy generation. This requires a large number of actors to adopt RETs. Policies will most likely be needed to induce adoption, but there is limited knowledge about what motivates RET adoption. The purpose of this paper is to complement and expand the available evidence regarding motives to adopt RETs through a survey to over 600 non-traditional RET adopters in Sweden. The main finding of the study is that although environmental concerns, technology interest, access to a base resource and prospects to make money are important motives in general, RET adopters is a heterogeneous group with regard to motives: there are many different motives to adopt RETs, adopters differ in how large importance they attach to the same motive and each adopter can have several different motives to adopt. There are also differences in motives between RETs (especially wind power vs. solar power) and between adopter categories (especially IPPs vs. individuals and diversified companies). This implies that a variety of policy instruments might be needed to induce further adoption of a variety of RETs by a variety of adopter categories.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Energiteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Energy Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik -- Energisystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering -- Energy Systems (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Renewable energy

motive

adoption

diffusion

investment

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)