A review of technology diffusion models with special reference to renewable energy technologies

K. Usha Rao and V.V.N. Kishore

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2010, vol. 14, issue 3, 1070-1078

Abstract: Diffusion of renewable energy technologies (RETs) are driven by policies and incentives due to their inherent characteristics such as high upfront costs, lack of level playing field but distinct advantages from energy security, environmental and social considerations. Even after three decades of their promotion, only 20-25% of their potential has been realized. The theory of diffusion modeling allows analysis of diffusion processes and study of growth rates of different technologies and underlying diffusion factors. Their applications have focused on commercial and consumer products such as television, automobiles and IT products and their applications to RETs have been limited. Diffusion analysis of RETs have been based on barriers' to RET adoption and techno-economic, learning and experience curve approaches. It is observed that these diffusion models when applied to commercial products do not deal with the issues of policy influences which are critical to RET diffusion. Since policies drive RET diffusion, the models for analyzing RET diffusion should allow establishing explicit relationships between the diffusion parameters and policies and their impact on diffusion rates. Given the potential of renewable energy technologies for sustainable development, the aim of this paper is to review different diffusion theory based models and their applicability to RET diffusion analysis.

Keywords: Renewable; energy; Diffusion; models; Policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (106)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364-0321(09)00269-X
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:rensus:v:14:y:2010:i:3:p:1070-1078

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

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