Community financing of renewable energy projects in Austria and Switzerland: Profiles of potential investors

Abstract

Small-scale investors are gaining recognition as a valuable source of private funding necessary for a successful energy transition. Still, there is limited knowledge about the characteristics of potential investors, especially in community renewable energy projects. This study intends to address this gap and investigates the impact of socio-demographic and socio-psychological characteristics on individuals' willingness to invest in community renewable energy projects. Our investigation is based on two large-scale representative surveys of 2,260 respondents in Austria and Switzerland. The majority of respondents would be willing to invest 1,000 to 10,000 CHF/EUR in such a project, with higher amounts in the Swiss sample. Potential investors in Austria tend to be male homeowners with higher incomes, while Swiss investors are more educated. Generally, positive attitudes and beliefs related to renewable energy have a significant impact on investment intention. The largest group of potential investors in both countries can be described as 'urban energy enthusiasts', who show high acceptance of wind energy installations near their communities. Surprisingly, a significant segment of potential investors is skeptical of a nearby wind installation. Study results can be used by decision-makers to tailor appropriate policy measures and by project developers for communication of the project aims and benefits.

The social perspective on island energy transitions: Evidence from the Aegean archipelago

“…Finally, in responding to recent calls to classify or segment energy end-customers in a manner that goes beyond the identification of basic attitudinal trends [20], an analytical novelty of this research is the application of a two-step cluster analysis described in Hair et al [102]. This data-driven post-hoc segmentation technique that has recently informed our understanding of attitudes to bioenergy production [103], community financing of renewable energy projects [104], and energy-user behaviour at the household level [105], and incorporates the principles of hierarchical and partitioning clustering methods to identify distinct sample profiles that were not known a-priori. In light of our interest in providing broader conclusions on whether islanders are in favour or against sustainable energy transitions, this explorative data-driven technique took into account responses to all of our question units to help arrive at an overall judgement of the sample population.…”

Autonomía energética local y desarrollo rural sostenible. Análisis de la pre-disposición a participar en comunidades energéticas renovables

“…O xénero foi tamén unha variable cunha influencia significativa sobre a intención ou decisión de participar/investir en CER na literatura previa. O coeficiente positivo indica que ser muller explicaría unha maior predisposición a participar/investir, o cal contradí estudos previos que atopan unha maior predisposición nos homes (Broughel e Hampl, 2018;Fraune, 2015). Dado que estes estudos non estaban especificamente centrados en comunidades rurais, podemos concluír que o contexto (no noso caso, rural) pode ser determinante á hora de explicar unha maior predisposición con base no xénero.…”

“…Os estudos baseados en técnicas cuantitativas son máis escasos (Fleiß et al, 2017). Entre eles, podemos distinguir tamén entre estudos sobre CER xa en funcionamento (Bauwens, 2016;Bauwens e Devine-Wright, 2018;Braito et al, 2017;Fleiß et al, 2017) e aqueles que analizan a intención de participar/investir en CER hipotéticas (Broughel e Hampl, 2018;Kalkbrenner e Roosen, 2016;Koirala et al, 2018;Salm, 2018;Salm, Hille e Wüstenhagen, 2016). Ningún destes estudos cuantitativos está, con todo, especificamente centrado en CER de tipo xeográfico nunha contorna rural.…”

“…En relación coas actitudes cara ás ER, demostrouse unha relación positiva tanto coas decisións de investimento en CER desde unha perspectiva ex post (Bauwens e Devine-Wright, 2018), como coa intención de investir (Broughel e Hampl, 2018). A pesar disto, as actitudes cara ás ER poden diferir entre quen decidiron participar ou non en CER, e tamén entre quen pertencen a comunidades de interese ou de tipo xeográfico (Bauwens e Devine-Wright, 2018).…”

An Investigation of Factors Affecting the Willingness to Invest in Renewables among Environmental Students: A Logistic Regression Approach

“…In the relevant literature, most previous studies have typically focused on the willingness of individuals to pay for renewable energy [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], while a substantial number of studies has explored individuals' willingness to invest in renewable energy [9,[20][21][22][23][24]. As observed, no study has so far examined explicitly young respondent groups such as undergraduate students whose study field is closely related to the environment.…”