IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v127y2023ipas0140988323005078.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of peer influence in rooftop solar adoption inequity in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • O'Shaughnessy, Eric
  • Grayson, Alexandra
  • Barbose, Galen

Abstract

Individual demand for emerging technologies can be influenced by the demand of other individuals within defined peer groups. These so-called peer effects have been demonstrated in emerging clean energy technologies such as rooftop solar. To date, peer effects have disproportionately driven solar adoption among relatively affluent households. Here, we use household-level income estimates of rooftop solar adopters to explore how peer effects drive adoption for low-income households. We find evidence of peer effects for both high- and low-income households and find that peer effects are generally stronger within than across income groups. Our results indicate that peer effects translate to adoption less frequently among low-income households. These results suggest that low-income peer effects are mitigated by barriers to low-income adoption. Heterogeneous peer influence is another demand shifter that explains the inequitable adoption of emerging technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • O'Shaughnessy, Eric & Grayson, Alexandra & Barbose, Galen, 2023. "The role of peer influence in rooftop solar adoption inequity in the United States," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pa:s0140988323005078
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988323005078
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O'Shaughnessy, Eric & Dong, Shiyuan & Cook, Jeffrey J. & Cruce, Jesse & Ardani, Kristen & Fekete, Emily & Margolis, Robert, 2022. "Effects of local permitting and interconnection requirements on solar PV installation durations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Foster, Andrew D & Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1995. "Learning by Doing and Learning from Others: Human Capital and Technical Change in Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1176-1209, December.
    3. Deborah A. Sunter & Sergio Castellanos & Daniel M. Kammen, 2019. "Disparities in rooftop photovoltaics deployment in the United States by race and ethnicity," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 71-76, January.
    4. Balta-Ozkan, Nazmiye & Yildirim, Julide & Connor, Peter M. & Truckell, Ian & Hart, Phil, 2021. "Energy transition at local level: Analyzing the role of peer effects and socio-economic factors on UK solar photovoltaic deployment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
    5. O'Shaughnessy, Eric & Barbose, Galen & Wiser, Ryan, 2020. "Patience is a virtue: A data-driven analysis of rooftop solar PV permitting timelines in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    6. Lukanov, Boris R. & Krieger, Elena M., 2019. "Distributed solar and environmental justice: Exploring the demographic and socio-economic trends of residential PV adoption in California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Christophe Van den Bulte & Stefan Stremersch, 2004. "Social Contagion and Income Heterogeneity in New Product Diffusion: A Meta-Analytic Test," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 530-544, July.
    8. Marcello Graziano & Kenneth Gillingham, 2015. "Spatial patterns of solar photovoltaic system adoption: The influence of neighbors and the built environment," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 815-839.
    9. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Itay Saporta-Eksten, 2016. "Consumption Inequality and Family Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 387-435, February.
    10. Carley, Sanya & Engle, Caroline & Konisky, David M., 2021. "An analysis of energy justice programs across the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Bryan Bollinger & Kenneth Gillingham & A. Justin Kirkpatrick & Steven Sexton, 2022. "Visibility and Peer Influence in Durable Good Adoption," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 453-476, May.
    12. Alipour, M. & Salim, H. & Stewart, Rodney A. & Sahin, Oz, 2020. "Predictors, taxonomy of predictors, and correlations of predictors with the decision behaviour of residential solar photovoltaics adoption: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Bryan Bollinger & Kenneth Gillingham, 2012. "Peer Effects in the Diffusion of Solar Photovoltaic Panels," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 900-912, November.
    14. Sanya Carley & David M. Konisky, 2020. "The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 569-577, August.
    15. Kimberly S. Wolske & Kenneth T. Gillingham & P. Wesley Schultz, 2020. "Peer influence on household energy behaviours," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 202-212, March.
    16. Eric O’Shaughnessy & Galen Barbose & Ryan Wiser & Sydney Forrester & Naïm Darghouth, 2021. "The impact of policies and business models on income equity in rooftop solar adoption," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 84-91, January.
    17. Xiong, Hang & Payne, Diane & Kinsella, Stephen, 2016. "Peer effects in the diffusion of innovations: Theory and simulation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-13.
    18. Orazio P. Attanasio & Luigi Pistaferri, 2016. "Consumption Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    19. Lorenz Graf-Vlachy & Katharina Buhtz & Andreas König, 2018. "Social influence in technology adoption: taking stock and moving forward," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 37-76, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Best, Rohan & Chareunsy, Andrea, 2022. "The impact of income on household solar panel uptake: Exploring diverse results using Australian data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    2. Brown, David P., 2022. "Socioeconomic and demographic disparities in residential battery storage adoption: Evidence from California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    3. Best, Rohan & Marrone, Mauricio & Linnenluecke, Martina, 2023. "Meta-analysis of the role of equity dimensions in household solar panel adoption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    4. Gao, Xue & Zhou, Shan, 2022. "Solar adoption inequality in the U.S.: Trend, magnitude, and solar justice policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    5. Stewart, Fraser, 2022. "Friends with benefits: How income and peer diffusion combine to create an inequality “trap” in the uptake of low-carbon technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    6. Min, Yohan & Ko, Inhwan, 2023. "Causal effects of place, people, and process on rooftop solar adoption through Bayesian inference," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    7. Carattini, Stefano & Gillingham, Kenneth & Meng, Xiangyu & Yoeli, Erez, 2024. "Peer-to-peer solar and social rewards: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 340-370.
    8. Du, Hua & Han, Qi & de Vries, Bauke & Sun, Jun, 2024. "Community solar PV adoption in residential apartment buildings: A case study on influencing factors and incentive measures in Wuhan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 354(PA).
    9. Fabian Scheller & Isabel Doser & Emily Schulte & Simon Johanning & Russell McKenna & Thomas Bruckner, 2021. "Stakeholder dynamics in residential solar energy adoption: findings from focus group discussions in Germany," Papers 2104.14240, arXiv.org.
    10. Che, Yuyuan & Feng, Hongli & Hennessy, David, 2021. "Assessing Peer Effects and Subsidy Impacts in Technology Adoption: Application to Grazing Management Choices with Farm Survey Data," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315123, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Best, Rohan, 2022. "Energy inequity variation across contexts," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    12. Corbett, Charles J. & Hershfield, Hal E. & Kim, Henry & Malloy, Timothy F. & Nyblade, Benjamin & Partie, Alison, 2022. "The role of place attachment and environmental attitudes in adoption of rooftop solar," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    13. O'Shaughnessy, Eric, 2022. "Rooftop solar incentives remain effective for low- and moderate-income adoption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Maren Springsklee & Fabian Scheller, 2022. "Exploring non-residential technology adoption: an empirical analysis of factors associated with the adoption of photovoltaic systems by municipal authorities in Germany," Papers 2212.05281, arXiv.org.
    15. Best, Rohan & Chareunsy, Andrea & Taylor, Madeline, 2023. "Changes in inequality for solar panel uptake by Australian homeowners," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    16. Brown, David P. & Muehlenbachs, Lucija, 2023. "The Value of Electricity Reliability: Evidence from Battery Adoption," Working Papers 2023-5, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 26 Jul 2024.
    17. Lemay, Amélie C. & Wagner, Sigurd & Rand, Barry P., 2023. "Current status and future potential of rooftop solar adoption in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    18. Lan, Haifeng & Gou, Zhonghua & Lu, Yi, 2021. "Machine learning approach to understand regional disparity of residential solar adoption in Australia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    19. Gabriel S. Sampson & Edward D. Perry, 2019. "Peer effects in the diffusion of water‐saving agricultural technologies," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 50(6), pages 693-706, November.
    20. Lonergan, Katherine Emma & Sansavini, Giovanni, 2022. "Business structure of electricity distribution system operator and effect on solar photovoltaic uptake: An empirical case study for Switzerland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pa:s0140988323005078. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.