IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v95y2025ics0957178725000293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New avenues for community solar adoption research: A qualitative comparative analysis of ten U.S. states

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Dong Min
  • Zhou, Shan
  • Wellstead, Adam M.

Abstract

Community solar presents an opportunity for every household and business to harness the advantages of solar energy. In the community solar adoption literature, qualitative and case-specific investigations have suggested potential adoption factors, such as related policies, solar technical potential, and socioeconomic measures. However, limited effort has been devoted to evaluating the complex dynamics of these causal conditions, let alone the development of empirical evidence. This paper fills these gaps using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine the dynamics of U.S. community solar adoption factors. The application of fsQCA, grounded in set-theoretic principles and truth-table analysis, enables a comprehensive evaluation of the various configurations of conditions that contribute to community solar adoption among the top ten adopting states. The results show that, in the most active states, adoption paths vary in government liberalism. For conservative states, the primary factors were a non-wealthy GDP per capita and strong solar potential. On the other hand, liberal states commonly had strong solar potential and high electricity prices as their common factors for adopting community solar.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Dong Min & Zhou, Shan & Wellstead, Adam M., 2025. "New avenues for community solar adoption research: A qualitative comparative analysis of ten U.S. states," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0957178725000293
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2025.101914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178725000293
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2025.101914?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.

    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:juipol:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0957178725000293. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.