Farmers’ Willingness to Achieve Energy Self-Sufficiency in Kosovo

Albiona Pestisha (), Attila Bai (), Ardit Sertolli, Njazi Bytyqi and Péter Balogh
Additional contact information
Albiona Pestisha: Institute of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Attila Bai: Institute of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Ardit Sertolli: Institute of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Njazi Bytyqi: Department of Agroeconomy, Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary, University of Prishtina, 10000 Prishtine, Kosovo
Péter Balogh: HUN-REN-DE High-Tech Technologies for Sustainable Management Research Group, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-32

Abstract: Agriculture accounts for a significant economic share in less-developed countries, especially Kosovo, where there is a lignite-dominated energy supply. Lignite’s partial replacement with locally produced renewable energy sources could play an essential role in reducing farmers’ costs and preparing the country for EU accession. Using a sample of 120 farmers, the Best–Worst Scaling (BWS) technique was used to assess farmers’ preferences for renewable energy applications and to measure the importance of seven key characteristics associated with the willingness to become energy self-sufficient. The results show a significant preference for “lower energy costs” and “environmental friendliness”. Using cluster analysis, it is shown in a statistically reliable way that while the decisions of smaller farms are influenced by economic factors and the role of energy self-sufficiency is negligible, a non-negligible share of larger farms already have already adopted self-sufficiency in energy production (solar panels, byproducts) and also consider the environment and convenience aspects necessary in their decisions. Farmers play an important role in local economic development. Therefore, regulatory schemes with differentiation by farm size may play an important role in promoting local energy management in Kosovo and similar less developed countries.

Keywords: attitude; straw; solar panel; BWS; cluster; local (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/6/1332/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/6/1332/ (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:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:6:p:1332-:d:1608086

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

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