Psychological factors influencing sustainable energy technology acceptance: A review-based comprehensive framework

Abstract

Environmental and societal problems related to energy use have spurred the development of sustainable energy technologies, such as wind mills, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen vehicles. Public acceptance of these technologies is crucial for their successful introduction into society. Although various studies have investigated technology acceptance, most technology acceptance studies focused on a limited set of factors that can influence public acceptance, and were not based on a comprehensive framework including key factors influencing technology acceptance. This paper puts forward a comprehensive framework of energy technology acceptance, based on a review of psychological theories and on empirical technology acceptance studies. The framework aims to explain the intention to act in favor or against new sustainable energy technologies, which is assumed to be influenced by attitude, social norms, perceived behavioral control, and personal norm. In the framework, attitude is influenced by the perceived costs, risks and benefits, positive and negative feelings in response to the technology, trust, procedural fairness and distributive fairness. Personal norm is influenced by perceived costs, risks and benefits, outcome efficacy and awareness of adverse consequences of not accepting the new technology. The paper concludes with discussing the applicability of the framework.

Public Perceptions and Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy: A Case Study from Greece

“…Contrarily, future research orientations under the same methodological approach, can be implemented to purely rural and island areas, in which it is anticipated that, among the local population, environmental protection and the improvement of life quality criteria should take advantage of the economically convenient and less costly energy choices that the Greek countryside offers. Finally, the inclusion of personality trait variables [75][76][77] in logit models evaluating WTP may provide better fit and better forecasting accuracy.…”

“…By applying a filter and selecting all respondents who are 'RES users', we re-run our final binary logit model and took the following table: As we see in Table 19, our final model has significant better prediction capabilities (Pseudo R 2 = 0.440) when it is applied only to RES users. Several interesting studies are also reporting that personality traits, like environmental awareness or eco-consciousness, are positively associated with environmentally responsible behavior [75][76][77]. …”

Understanding the Emergence and Social Acceptance of Electric Vehicles as Next-Generation Models for the Automobile Industry

“…Similarly, Huijts, Molin, and Steg (2012) found the TPB to be valid for explaining sustainable energy technology acceptance. In the field of vehicle-related systems [34], Park and Kim (2014) found the technology acceptance concept to be valid for investigating driver acceptance of automobile-related systems [35].…”

Polycentric Governance Approaches for a Low-Carbon Transition: The Roles of Community-Based Energy Initiatives in Enhancing the Resilience of Future Energy Systems

“…Trust is also an important ingredient in the transition to a low-carbon society, because the implementation of decentralized RE installations and smart-metering technologies need to be steered by individuals and organizations that are highly trusted and rooted in local communities (Eyre 2013). Trust in actors that are responsible for the development of a technology is critical when it comes to social acceptability of this technology, especially when people know little about it (Jobert et al 2007;Walker et al 2010;Huijts et al 2012). In the wind power context, Eltham et al (2008) have documented, through the study of public opinions of a local population living near a wind farm, how suspicion of the developers' motives by the public, distrust of the developers and disbelief in the planning system may preclude the success of wind farm projects.…”