What determines the uptake of solar PV? – A survey of early, potential and unlikely adopters of residential PV systems and participants of community PV projects

To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, deployment of solar PV needs to be increased significantly. There is abundant literature on the adoption of solar PV. However, most of the prior work focused on adopters or their comparison with non-adopters. In contrast, there is relatively very little research explicitly on potential adopters and unlikely adopters. Hence, through a large-N survey with Swiss households (N = 4′909), we investigated what factors characterise unlikely, potential and early adopters and participants of solar PV and PV projects, respectively. We analysed the intention and adoption of residential solar PV and the participation in PV projects and compared the determinants of both alternatives. Our findings reveal that psychosocial characteristics and pro-solar policy beliefs as well as contextual factors are important for developing both an intention to adopt and to participate. The results also show that non-adopters and non-participants do not represent a uniform group. For potential adopters, the perceived characteristics of PV, exchanges about PV within personal network and housing infrastructure stand out as important factors that could hinder or drive the progress towards adoption. By providing a finer-grained insight into potential adopters and unlikely adopters/participants, our study enables targeting of different adopter categories more effectively. • Compares the determinants of solar PV adoption and commune-PV project participation. • We conducted a large-N survey (N = 4909) with Swiss households. • Uncovers the factors differing unlikely, potential and early adopters/participants. • Provides policy recommendations to target each adopter category more effectively.