The adoption of PV in the Netherlands: A statistical analysis of adoption factors

In this paper we studied factors behind the adoption and non-adoption of solar PV in the Netherlands. The main purpose of this paper was to gain insight in and to understand the adoption of PV in the Netherlands from a user perspective. In our analysis, the influence of the following four factors is studied: the perceived relative advantage of the technology, the complexity of the innovation, social influence, and knowledge of grants and costs. For each of the factors, different proxies are being used in an attempt to study individual components. The influence of the four adoption factors are studied for 4 groups: voluntary adopters, involuntary adopters (people who bought a house equipped with solar PV), potential adopters and rejecters. In this research, we used descriptive analyses and logistic regression analyses.

We show that the cost of a PV system is an important element behind the adoption and non-adoption of PV in the Netherlands. For adopters, the costs of adoption are considered affordable whereas for non-adopters they are viewed as being too high. The differences have to do with adopters valuing the benefits more than non-adopters. This shows that adoption depends on attribute perceptions.