A meta-analysis of residential PV adoption: the important role of perceived benefits, intentions and antecedents in solar energy acceptance

TL;DR

This meta-analysis identifies key psychological and perceptual factors influencing residential PV adoption, emphasizing perceived benefits and behavioral control, and offers guidelines to improve future research synthesis.

Contribution

It advances understanding of PV adoption by integrating behavioral models through meta-analytical structural equation modeling and highlights the importance of perceived benefits.

Findings

Perceived benefits strongly predict adoption intention.

Environmental concern and subjective norm influence perceived benefits.

Socio-demographic variables are not significantly related to intention.

Abstract

The adoption of residential photovoltaic systems (PV) is seen as an important part of the sustainable energy transition. To facilitate this process, it is crucial to identify the determinants of solar adoption. This paper follows a meta-analytical structural equation modeling approach, presenting a meta-analysis of studies on residential PV adoption intention, and assessing four behavioral models based on the theory of planned behavior to advance theory development. Of 653 initially identified studies, 110 remained for full-text screening. Only eight studies were sufficiently homogeneous, provided bivariate correlations, and could thus be integrated into the meta-analysis.The pooled correlations across primary studies revealed medium to large correlations between environmental concern, novelty seeking, perceived benefits, subjective norm and intention to adopt a residential PV system, whereas socio-demographic variables were uncorrelated with intention. Meta-analytical structural equation modeling revealed a model (N = 1,714) in which adoption intention was predicted by benefits and perceived behavioral control, and benefits in turn could be explained by environmental concern, novelty seeking, and subjective norm. Our results imply that measures should primarily focus on enhancing the perception of benefits. Based on obstacles we encountered within the analysis, we suggest guidelines to facilitate the future aggregation of scientific evidence, such as the systematic inclusion of key variables and reporting of bivariate correlations.