Factors influencing the adoption of renewable energy in the U.S. residential sector: An optimal parameters-based geographical detector approach

Rui Jiang, Peng Wu, Yongze Song, Chengke Wu, Peng Wang and Yun Zhong

Renewable Energy, 2022, vol. 201, issue P1, 450-461

Abstract: The use of fossil fuels has been a major contributor to global climate change. To mitigate the negative impact of fossil fuels, renewable energy (RE) has been increasingly promoted. This study aims to investigate factors impacting the adoption of RE in the residential sector, using the U.S. as a case study. Residential RE consumption rate data in 51 states/districts of the U.S. were collected from 2010 to 2018 to examine the adoption of RE. Correspondingly, four categories of explanatory variables affecting the consumption rate were investigated, including demographics, availability, consumers' affordability, and regulatory compliance motivation. An optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD) model was implemented to investigate spatio-temporal impacts of variables on the consumption rate. Results show that factors that have consistently significant impacts on residential RE adoption include percentage of RE production of the availability category and residential monthly electricity bill of the consumers’ affordability category. Population was also an important factor from 2012 to 2018. The impact of RE production rate can also be further enhanced when combined with other factors, such as residential monthly bill and number of regulatory policies. Based on these results, several practical recommendations are proposed as references for government to increase RE adoption.

Keywords: Carbon neutrality; Renewable energy; Green electricity; Residential; Optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148122014434
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:201:y:2022:i:p1:p:450-461

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2022.09.084

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().