Market Uptake Role of Colored PV: a Stakeholder-Centric Analysis of Facilitating and Restraining Forces

This study examines the market uptake of colored photovoltaic (PV) technologies developed for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), with the aim of elucidating the driving and restraining forces that shape their acceptance across diverse stakeholder groups. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, the qualitative data were thematically coded, and subsequently analyzed through force field analysis (FFA), thereby enabling a systematic comparison of facilitating and constraining dynamics. The findings indicate that restraining forces presently outweigh facilitating ones. Primary among the barriers are high upfront costs, protracted payback periods, and regulatory uncertainties. In contrast, architects’ emphasis on aesthetic integration, the visibility afforded by public pilot projects, and the environmental benefits of adoption emerge as salient facilitating factors. Government incentives are revealed to play a dual role: acting as a powerful enabler when present, yet becoming a formidable barrier when absent. Overall, the results suggest that while structural and financial impediments continue to constrain short-term commercialization, the active involvement of architects, combined with targeted policy frameworks, financial incentives, and awareness-raising strategies, can recalibrate the balance in favor of facilitating forces. In the long term, colored PV may thus evolve beyond a technological novelty to become a transformative paradigm that fuses architectural aesthetics with sustainable energy transitions in the built environment.