Advancing societal readiness toward renewable energy system adoption with a socio-technical perspective

Abstract

The development of renewable energy systems has put a large emphasis on technical progress rather than examination of ways to foster societal demand to diffuse the new energy technologies. In order to understand demand-side issues that are important to sustainable energy innovation, this research examines key factors of renewable energy systems diffusion from a socio-technological perspective. Based on theory of planned behavior (TPB), a research model was constructed around "societal" factors such as social trust and social support alongside "technology" issues such as technical facilitating conditions and perceived system quality. This research reveals that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control impact on consumers' intention to use renewable energy systems. In addition, social trust and social support are influential factors on attitude and subjective norm while facilitating technical condition has influence on perceived behavioral control. The findings of this study suggest that business managers and policy makers should have a strategy to advance societal readiness toward sustainable energy innovation and to balance it with technology development.