Solar Business in an Oil-Rich Country? A Socio-Technical Investigation of Solar PV Businesses in Iran

Leila Aghlimoghadam ()
Additional contact information
Leila Aghlimoghadam: Institute of Work, Technology and Participation, Technical University of Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-20

Abstract: Market acceptance of renewable energy technologies involves both the demand and supply sides, though the main empirical literature has focused on the demand side under the titles like public, communities, users’, market or even social acceptance. In this study, I focus on solar businesses (niche actors) as the suppliers of solar PV services in Iran. My main research questions are: (i) which factors drive solar businesses to establish and do business in the solar PV field despite the fossil-based economy and energy policies in Iran? (ii) what are the practical barriers to solar business in Iran? and (iii) which roles do Iranian solar businesses play in bringing solar PV development forward? I collected the data via 20 semi-structured interviews with solar businesspeople in diverse Provinces in Iran. Taking an inductive approach (Grounded Theory) toward the data, my results lead to significant insights: the dominance of intrinsic behavioural drivers over the major extrinsic barriers among Iranian solar businesspeople, moreover to their key roles in educating people and driving the innovative deployment of solar PV. This research helps to inform first, policymakers about the existing potential among solar businesses, and second the solar businesses themselves about adopting better business strategies.

Keywords: energy transition; market acceptance; solar business; driver; barrier; role; oil-rich country; Iran (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/11/8973/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/11/8973/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:11:p:8973-:d:1162247

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().