Shining a Light on Risk: Risk Preferences and Adoption Decisions of Residential Solar PV

Individuals making a decision about whether to adopt rooftop solar PV technology face significant financial risk, including technology underperformance, unexpected maintenance and repairs, and changes in policy regarding solar PV incentives. The presence of risk as a factor in the adoption decision suggests that individuals with a higher level of risk tolerance are more likely to adopt the technology than those who are risk averse. In addition, early adopters are also more likely to be risk-tolerant than late adopters. In this paper, we use a lab-in-the-field experiment to elicit individual risk preferences from a subject pool of solar PV adopters and non-adopters, and use this data to examine the effect of risk preference on the decision to adopt solar PV. Our findings confirm our hypothesis that risk preference plays a crucial role in determining solar PV adoption status and the timing of adoption. Our findings suggest that reducing risk in the solar market through policy or through risk-mitigating insurance products can help to broaden solar PV adoption among households.