Red is the new blue – The role of color, building integration and country-of-origin in homeowners' preferences for residential photovoltaics
Type
journal article
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. We investigate the extent to which financial and non-financial factors drive homeowners’ preferences for PV in Switzerland. In addition, we estimate the price premium that homeowners are willing to pay for building-integrated PV (BIPV) versus rack-mounted PV. By conducting an adaptive choice-based conjoint (ACBC) with a representative sample of Swiss homeowners planning to undertake a roof renovation project, 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. The results also reveal that the color and country of origin of the PV modules are the main drivers for increasing share of preference for PV. We further show that certain forms of governmental support to increase energy savings over a longer period (e.g. feed-in tariffs), provided that they are transparently disclosed over an aggregated time frame, would be almost equally effective in spurring demand for PV as one-off grants to lower investment costs. Implications for energy policy and marketing are discussed.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Publisher
Electronic preprint / Working Paper submitted for publication
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
251316
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Name
Hille et al._Red is the new blue – The role of color, building integration and country of origin in homeowners preferences for residential photovoltaics_Working paper.pdf
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Unspecified
Size
1.06 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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