Public preferences for renewable energy options: A choice experiment in Kenya

Oluoch, Sydney; Lal, Pankaj; Susaeta, Andres; Wolde, Bernabas

doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105256

Cited by 26 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…However, only a few studies have discussed people’s preferences of different energy sources (Bakkensen and Schuler 2020 ; Yu 2021 ) which find out that citizens in Vietnam and China prefer coal over renewable resources. On the other hand, Oluoch et al ( 2021 ) found that people in Kenya prefer solar energy then wind and biomass; similarly, Peng et al ( 2021 ) claimed that the interest in wind energy is growing in the recent decades worldwide.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of GHG emissions and renewable energy sources in Europe, Australia and the USA

Zhang

Abbas

Iqbal

2021

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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People’s sentiments and perceptions of greenhouse gas emission and renewable energy are important information to understand their reaction to the planned mitigation policy. Therefore, this research analyzes people’s perceptions of greenhouse gas emissions and their preferences for renewable energy resources using a sample of Twitter data. We first identify themes of discussion using semantic text similarity and network analysis. Next, we measure people’s interest in renewable energy resources based on the mentioned rate in Twitter and search interest in Google trends. Then, we measure people’s sentiment toward these resources and compare the interest with sentiments to identify opportunities for policy improvement. The results indicate a minor influence of governmental assemblies on Twitter discourses compared to a very high influence of two renewable energy providers amounts to more than 40% of the tweeting activities related to renewable energy. The search interest analysis shows a slight shift in people’s interest in favor of renewable energy. The interest in geothermal energy is decreasing while interest in biomass energy is increasing. The sentiment analysis shows that biomass energy has the highest positive sentiments while solar and wind energy have higher interest. Solar and wind energy are found to be the two most promising sources for the future energy transition. Our study implies that governments should practice a higher influence on promoting awareness of the environment and converging between people’s interests and feasible energy solutions. We also advocate Twitter as a source for collecting real-time data about social preferences for environmental policy input.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of GHG emissions and renewable energy sources in Europe, Australia and the USA

Zhang

Abbas

Iqbal

2021

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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“…We considered the Rwanda energy policy framework, outcomes from focus group discussions, and existing literature from studies such as Bergmann et al (2006), Ku and Yoo (2010), O'Keeffe (2014), Vecchiato and Tempesta (2015), and Oluoch et al (2021) to determine the attributes and corresponding levels.…”

Section: Attributes and Optimal Choice Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For impact of environmental attributes (IOE), we considered generalizable levels such as low, medium, and high. This was because different renewable energy sources have diverging environmental concerns such as disruption of local biodiversity, carbon emissions, and local climatic changes (Oluoch et al, 2021). The economic attributes considered were community job creation (CJC) local jobs and yearly household energy taxes (COST) that is the cost attribute covering the capital cost of the hypothetical renewable energy projects.…”

Section: Community Job Creation (Cjc)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Preferences for Renewable Energy Options: A Choice Experiment in Rwanda

Oluoch

Lal²,

Susaeta³

et al. 2022

Front. Clim.

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Rwanda has seen impressive economic growth in the past few years resulting from policy driven initiatives. However, one of the key challenges to economic development in Rwanda has been the provision of reliable and cost-effective energy. As a result, the country has planned to expand its renewable energy portfolio to meet its energy demand and mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Meeting these goals requires a robust policy framework that considers the perspective of the public. Moreso, for women who have been disproportionately affected by climate change especially in developing countries. Gender equality is a key for the Rwanda strategy as gender gaps remain a barrier to equal benefits from energy access to all. Several challenges abound in providing access to electricity and reducing the dependency on wood fuel for cooking, hence deliberate effort needs to be made to ensure gender responsiveness in energy programs and policies. This study applied a choice experiment analysis to determine how renewable energy attributes (type of energy, ownership, impact on environment, distance and visibility, community job creation and renewable energy tax) impacts public willingness to pay for renewable energy development in Rwanda. A nationwide survey was conducted on 1,006 households from which 58.35% were women. We applied both the conditional logit (MNL) and random parameter logit (RPL) framework. We found that the Rwandan public has a high utility for the following issues: environmental impact, distance and visibility, and type of renewable energy, respectively. Further analysis focused on the gendered impacts of renewable energy revealed that women had the strongest preference for interventions with low impact on the environment. From a policy standpoint women's input should be incorporated in future decision-making processes through public participation to guide policymakers in developing beneficial renewable energy programs.

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“…Kenya plays an exciting role in its capacity to produce climate compatible economic growth and is widely considered to be a regional leader in its promotion and development of renewable and clean energies (Uddin et al, 2013;Wolde-Rufael, 2009). Kenya's geographical location presents a wealth of attractive and affordable renewable energy options at its disposal (Ndiritu and Engola, 2020;Oluoch et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence-Based Policy Making: Insights and Policy Recommendations for the Implementation of a Clean Energy Transition in Kenya.

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2023

Preprint

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With ambitious targets to drastically increase economic activity over the next decade in order to propel itself to become a middle-income country, Kenya’s future is undoubtedly energy intensive. Through the achievement of its bold and aspiring goals, Kenya is poised to become a regional economic giant with the capacity to strengthen its position as a global leader in renewable energy production. However, current energy capacity expansion plans will see Kenya drastically ramp up fossil fuel generation, significantly increasing emissions and regressing progress made towards its climate and renewable energy targets. Therefore, Kenya is at a crucial stage of its national development with critical decisions to make regarding its future energy expansion and production. The use of energy systems modelling as a method to provide key insights for evidence-based policy making has risen in importance in energy planning globally. Such an approach can provide crucial insights and projections on the impact of potential policy decisions, creating pathways to be adopted within policy. As a result, this study employs long-term energy systems modelling to explore a series of potential future scenarios for Kenya’s power sector, providing insights into their generation, total production, and costs that can assist national policy making. Specifically, this research utilises OSeMOSYS modelling software to produce a Clean Energy Transition scenario (CET) as one possible future for Kenya’s power sector to increase renewable energy production under rapidly intensifying demand. The critical insights gained in this research were employed to suggest seven key policy recommendations for Kenya’s power sector.

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Public preferences for renewable energy options: A choice experiment in Kenya

Cited by 26 publications

References 21 publications

Perceptions of GHG emissions and renewable energy sources in Europe, Australia and the USA

Perceptions of GHG emissions and renewable energy sources in Europe, Australia and the USA

Public Preferences for Renewable Energy Options: A Choice Experiment in Rwanda

Evidence-Based Policy Making: Insights and Policy Recommendations for the Implementation of a Clean Energy Transition in Kenya.

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