Appearance is often key to the success of consumer-oriented products. However, few studies have been conducted to understand the role visual appearance plays in the adoption of renewable energy systems. This paper investigates the influence of visual appeal of renewable energy systems on consumer preference with a case study of residential solar panels. Two surveys of US residents were conducted with 194 and 350 responses, respectively. The first focused on aspects of solar panel appearance, including color, surface pattern and frame, while the second examined the tradeoffs between solar panel appearance, functional performance and price. Respondents were presented with two types of visual representations: solar panel images alone or solar panel images shown in the context of use. Results suggest that consumers in general prefer black solar panels with rounded-cornered and even-surfaced solar cells, and prefer the color of solar panels to match the color of the roof. It was also found that respondents were willing to pay a higher price for better-looking solar systems. This effect was found to be stronger with contextualized images of solar panels on roofs.

Abstract:The building sector is one of the crucial stakeholders in the global energy and environmental scenario. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool widely used to evaluate the environmental performance of buildings, materials and activities. Saudi Arabia has a rapidly growing construction sector with over $1 Trillion of ongoing projects. The housing sector, annually needing over 2.32 million new residential units in coming years, is yet to entertain environmental performance of buildings in its list of priorities. The present work undertakes a LCA study of a three-bedroom modern villa located in Dhahran. Providing the structural details of the villa, an account of the 18 main construction materials in terms of quantity and application has been produced. Embodied energy of these materials has been estimated adopting 'cradle-to-gate' approach. Environmental impacts of the materials have been modeled with the help of SimaPro software. The results suggest that concrete accounts for more than 43% of the total embodied energy of the house and is also the predominant material in terms of the overall environmental impacts. Steel is the second most prominent material both in terms of quantity and embodied energy.

No abstract

Eco-feedback design is a strategy for encouraging sustainable behavior by making users aware of the resources they consume. Reminding users of their resource usage can help them understand the environmental impacts of their actions and evoke feelings such as sympathy or responsibility for the environment. This study investigated two aspects of presenting resource usage information in eco-feedback designs: the quantitative clarity of the information, and the strength of emotion evoked by the designs. This paper examines how these two aspects of eco-feedback influence users’ perception and preference for the designs. Four design prompts with different levels of quantitative clarity and emotion were used to generate 16 designs. An online survey with these designs was distributed among students at four universities in two countries. Results from 216 valid responses showed evidence that both the quantitative and emotional aspects are important to the eco-feedback designs. The survey also gathered data about respondents’ knowledge about resource consumption. Results suggested that students in technical majors were generally better at estimating resource consumption, and tended to prefer designs with more quantitative data. In contrast, students in non-technical majors generally made less accurate estimates and tended to prefer designs that evoke stronger emotions. These findings could inform designers on how to make more effective eco-feedback designs to promote sustainable behaviors.

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. ABSTRACTThe importance of the appearance of consumer products is widely understood. This paper considers an evaluation of the appearance of a technology-oriented product, the residential solar panel, from the perspective of individuals. This study uses a quantitative approach, visual conjoint analysis, to determine preferences for product appearance of solar panels, and further explores how presenting a solar panel in its context of use can influence the consistency of consumer preferences. Approximately 200 survey respondents were shown two kinds of images of solar panels, one of a standalone panel and the other of a panel installed on a roof. Results show a significant shift of preferences when first showing the non-contextualized image and then showing the contextualized image. Such preference inconsistency provides insights with which to inform the process of user-needs revealing.