Perceived critical factors affecting consumers’ intention to purchase renewable generation technologies: Rural-urban heterogeneity

Since the acceptance of renewable generation technologies (RGTs) may assist in scaling up renewables, the exploration and identification of perceived critical factors (PCFs) affecting RGTs are needed. This study examines the PCFs affecting consumers’ intention to purchase RGTs (IPR) in a hybrid behavioral framework. For this purpose, this study has developed a hybrid behavioral framework through the introduction of components of PCFs including the perceived benefit component of RGTs (BC), perceived cost component of RGTs (CC), perceived investment risk component of RGTs (IRC), and green solution to power blackout (GSPB) to a comprehensive framework. The analysis has been conducted on data collected through a questionnaire survey from rural and urban regions of Punjab province of Pakistan. The results are categorized into three types of components. First, the perceived functional component (FC), perceived conditional component (CDC), BC, and GSPB are termed ‘driving components,’ likely to drive consumers’ IPR positively. Second, the ‘inhibitory components’ are composed of CC and IRC, which are likely to inhibit consumers’ IPR. For these two types of components, the results were robust across all the samples. Third, the perceived social component (SOC) and perceived emotional component (EMC) are known as ‘neutrality components,’ likely to impart no effect on consumers’ IPR in the case of the whole sample and urban regions. However, in the case of rural areas, they proved to be ‘driving components.’ Thus, firstly, rural-urban heterogeneity is found in terms of SOC and EMC’s heterogeneous effects across rural and urban regions. Secondly, the size of all the components’ effect remained relatively larger in urban regions than in the rural regions. Based on the results, novel policy implications are proposed.