Advancing societal readiness toward renewable energy system adoption with a socio-technical perspective

Highlights

• This research examines key diffusion factors of renewable energy system from a socio-technological perspective.

• Attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control effects the consumers’ intention to use renewable energy system.

• Social trust and social support are influential factors on attitude and subjective norm.

• Facilitating technical condition has an influence on perceived behavioral control.

• It is necessary to balance societal readiness and technology development to diffuse renewable energy system.

Abstract

The development of renewable energy systems has put a large emphasis on technical progress rather than examination of ways to foster societal demand to diffuse the new energy technologies. In order to understand demand-side issues that are important to sustainable energy innovation, this research examines key factors of renewable energy systems diffusion from a socio-technological perspective. Based on theory of planned behavior (TPB), a research model was constructed around “societal” factors such as social trust and social support alongside “technology” issues such as technical facilitating conditions and perceived system quality. This research reveals that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control impact on consumers' intention to use renewable energy systems. In addition, social trust and social support are influential factors on attitude and subjective norm while facilitating technical condition has influence on perceived behavioral control. The findings of this study suggest that business managers and policy makers should have a strategy to advance societal readiness toward sustainable energy innovation and to balance it with technology development.

Introduction

For a technological innovation to be successfully deployed and diffused in the market there must be sufficient user demand for it (Mowery and Rosenberg, 1979). If the demand-pull force does not clearly exist or is immature for a new technology, technological advances, even when seemingly useful, are only cases of scientific invention, rather than innovation. Renewable energy technologies are a prime example where consumers' participation and their active response are necessary to spur market demand. Even though past advancements in renewable energy technologies have led to increased energy efficiency and cost reduction, various obstacles related to sustainable energy demand still hinder the growth of renewable energy market (IEA (International Energy Agency), 2013; Kemp et al., 1998). In particular, energy is a societal good in which various stakeholder interests exist and their collective consensus must be formed in order for transition to occur. This demand formation issue is confounded by the supply side conditions such as the relatively high prices of energy generation and distribution in renewable energy industry compared to conventional fossil fuel sources including the newly industrialized shale gas.

As such, the growth of renewable energy market has been slow. In order to overcome the barriers to the new technology diffusion and demand expansion, it is necessary to consider socio-technical dimensions in adopting renewable energy. While past studies have focused on policy measures to eliminate major mostly technological and economic barriers for renewable energy industry, one must consider both societal and technical factors that influence the characteristics of renewable energy industry growth. According to Jobert et al. (2007), conventional systems are locked into a dominant market segment so that all stakeholders related with renewable energy need to participate and act together for effective diffusion of renewable energy in society. Wüstenhagen et al. stress that if social supports and needs are strong, renewable energy technologies can be adopted despite having lower energy efficiency than market-leading technologies (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007). Hence, it is appropriate to introduce a socio-technical framework; the one employed in this paper and apply it to analyze demand creation strategy for renewable energy industry. To increase the adoption of renewable energy technologies, it is necessary to consider equally both social and technical issues (Sovacool and Sovacool, 2009).

Previous studies on adoption of renewable energy technology focus on personal characteristics such as environmental consciousness and knowledge, or products' characteristics like complexity, compatibility, and perceived relative advantages (usefulness). On one hand, when consumers adopt renewable energy, they perceive benefits such as environmental protection, long-term savings from reduced utility bills, and independence from traditional energy suppliers (Claudy et al., 2011). On the other hand, people perceive the risk of incompatibility with traditional energy systems, difficult operations, and initial installation costs (Claudy et al., 2011, Harmon and Cowan, 2009). Therefore, market is not easily created due to cost disadvantages in comparison to traditional technologies, as well as lack of direct benefits for the individuals (Kemp, 1994). It is clear that these consumer perspectives must be considered beyond simple technical and economic logics for successful creation of market demand. Note that the social influence is more important than technical advantages in persuading people to adopt renewable energy systems. In the case of large renewable energy plants, the aspect of gaining social acceptance becomes more important (Mallet, 2007, Sauter and Watson, 2007) Roger also emphasizes that successful diffusion of innovation requires proper communication (Rogers Everett, 1995). Innovative firms must not only develop renewable energy technologies and produce renewable energy systems, but also put immense efforts to shape the market through persuasion and education of consumers in increasing their perceived benefits and decreasing perceived risk (Kemp, 1994, Lee et al., 2006). Therefore, we should incorporate such consumer-related, social factors in developing our research model to be tested.

A number of researchers have attempted to use a technological assessment framework supplemented with social–technical point of view in order to reveal social and technical barriers that impede the market diffusion in macro system of innovation (Batley et al., 2001, Grünewald et al., 2012). However, there is only limited research work to find the relationship between socio-technical external factors and consumers' psychological behavior in renewable energy industry (Claudy et al., 2011, Bang et al., 2000, Rowlands et al., 2002, Rowlands et al., 2003, Bamberg, 2003). While a number of studies have discovered that external, societal environment significantly influences the decision making process of consumers (Fraj and Martinez, 2006, Lin and Hsu, 2013), there is a lack of empirical studies which consider such external environment and social factors in the case of renewable energy technology adoption (Lin and Hsu, 2013). Theory of planned behavior (TPB) is one of the considered models for social influence through the subjective norm; however, Kling points out that the use of new technologies is affected by more complex social environment where institutional, cultural, and technological elements are associated together (Kling, 2000). Therefore, this research has blended factors ranging from “social” issues such as social trust and social support and to “technical” issues such as the technical facilitating conditions and perceived system quality.

In this context, it is necessary to examine how socio-technical factors affect consumers' intention to use renewable energy systems. The factors to be considered in this paper have perception effects including attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. The structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to test the social–technical research model and hypothesized relationships empirically. The findings of this study will provide empirical evidence that strengthens the theoretical basis for predicting and explaining consumers' intention to use a renewable energy system. From an academic standpoint, this study evaluates the extended theory of planned behavior model with reference to social–technical factors for the market adoption of an innovative technological system in transitional periods. Moreover, applying the socio-technical perspectives in a quantitative manner helps to extend the theory of planned behavior model for sustainable innovation where understanding user response is most critical. From a managerial practice perspective, given the importance of renewable energy systems in contemporary business discourse, the findings of this study offer corporate managers and policy makers with effective strategies to approach their customers to develop clean energy marketing programs and various sustainability initiatives in a community.