Red is the new blue – The role of color, building integration and country-of-origin in homeowners ’ preferences for residential photovoltaics
Journal
Energy and Buildings
ISSN
0378-7788
ISSN-Digital
1872-6178
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2018-03
Author(s)
Abstract
The wider diffusion of solar photovoltaics (PV) is crucial to lower the environmental impact of the residential sector, which is responsible for a large share of energy consumption in many industrialized countries, including Switzerland. By conducting an adaptive choice-based conjoint (ACBC) with a representative sample of Swiss homeowners planning to undertake a roof renovation project, we investigate the extent to which financial and non-financial factors drive homeowners’ preferences for PV in Switzerland. We reveal that the color and country of origin of the PV modules are the main drivers for increasing share of preference for PV. In addition, we estimate the price premium that homeowners are willing to payfor building-integrated PV (BIPV) versus rack-mounted PV. We find a premium in willingness to pay of 21.79% for a roof with a BIPV installation in comparison with a rack-mounted PV installation. We further show that an increase in revenues from electricity sales (e.g. via feed-in tariffs), when transparently disclosed over an aggregated time frame, would be almost equally effective in spurring demand for PV as a decrease of initial investment costs (e.g. via one-off investment grants). Implications for energy policy and marketing are discussed.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SoM - Business Innovation
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Elsevier Science
Publisher place
Amsterdam [u.a.]
Volume
162
Start page
21
End page
31
Pages
11
Subject(s)
Contact Email Address
rolf.wuestenhagen@unisg.ch
Eprints ID
253227
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Name
Hille et al. 2018.pdf
Size
2.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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