Identifying the Adoption Factors of Photovoltaic Systems from Individual and Organizational Perspectives

• Main Authors: Sheng-Hsiang Lin, 林聖翔
• Other Authors: Chiung-Wen Hu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24240605100148825847

碩士 === 逢甲大學 === 科技管理研究所 === 99 === Global warming and limitations of fossil fuels are now showing their effects all over the world because of the large carbon emissions resulting from the use of fossil energy. Electricity production and consumption has become one of the major causes of carbon emissions. As such, photovoltaic systems have become one of the popular solutions to mitigate carbon emissions from traditional electricity production and consumption. Because photovoltaic systems are renewable energy sources, their installation costs remain high. In order to stimulate diffusion and ease adoption barriers, government policy will play a significant role in increasing consumer willingness to adopt photovoltaic systems. Besides, an appropriate and correct energy policy will be much more effective. Thus far, some governments have tried to stimulate photovoltaic system installation with grants but this has not yet resulted in widespread adoption. In order to identify some of the barriers to the adoption of photovoltaic systems, this paper collects some related adoption factors by reference. We indentify five factors—product, environment, installation, subsidy, and government—and fifteen sub-factors. This study uses an expert questionnaire and divides the potential adopters into two groups: individual (household) users and organizational (enterprise) users. The questionnaire was filled by Taiwanese enterprise managers having the decision-making power with regard to the adoption of photovoltaic systems. These experts give their opinions from two different perspectives—as individual users and as organizational users—on the five factors and the fifteen sub-factors we decided. An AHP analysis yielded that the relevant adoption factors for the household and enterprise users were explicitly different. Enterprises care more about the government and the environmental factors. When responding as organizational users, the following adoption weighting sequence were “regulation”, “carbon reduction”, “tax incensative”, “social responsibility” and “conservation efficiency”. On the other hand, households care more about subsidy and installation. When responding as individual users, the following adoption weighting sequence were “feed-in tariff”, “install grants”, “installation space”, “product life” and “low interest loan”. On the basis of these results, we are able to obtain accurate information about the key adoption factors for the two different groups. At the same time, we derive implications with regard to commercialization efforts for comparison with the current photovoltaic systems promotion policy to check whether or not it can attract potential adopters. Furthermore, these results will allow us to make suggestions to our government and improve the effectiveness of the relevant policies.