Trigger my motivations and remove my barriers: Latent class analyses of homeowners’ perception about home energy retrofit

The effectiveness of interventions promoting household energy-efficiency investments depends on the diversity of the target audience. In the context of home energy retrofit, where decision-making is complex and influenced by multiple market and behavioural failures, few studies have rigorously analysed real-world homeowner attitudes and behaviours that enable meaningful policy implications. This study addresses this gap by applying model-based 3-step latent class analyses (LCA) to a sample of 1,011 Dutch homeowners with actual retrofit experience, focusing particularly on various motivations and barriers of home energy retrofit. Five motivation segments and three barrier segments are identified, separately. The motivation segments include balanced motivation homeowner s (26.7 %), individual utility maximiser s (6.8 %), immediate utility seeker s (14.7 %), environmental and immediate utility maximiser s (6.3 %), and the environmental-financial sensitive majority (45.4 %). The barrier segments are labelled as balanced financial and feasibility barriers (72.3 %), lack of demand (24.3 %), and prominent non-financial barriers (3.4 %). Both segmentation solutions demonstrate high classification accuracy and meaningful substantive interpretation. Furthermore, the segments for motivations and barriers show only marginal correlations, offering complementary insights. The findings enhance the understanding of homeowner heterogeneity in the energy retrofit market and support the design of more targeted incentives, information, and de-hassling programmes. • Identified 5 motivation-based and 3 barrier-based homeowner latent classes. • Motivation segments vary in financial, environmental, and comfort aspects. • Barrier segments differ by affordability, demand, and non-financial hurdles. • Motivation and barrier segments are only weakly correlated, showing complementarity. • Findings support targeted incentives, information, and de-hassling programs.