Generating interest in solar power: Familiarity and photovoltaic adoption among electric utility managers.

摘要

Conventional models of innovation adoption fail to account for some of the most important factors in determining potential adopters' interest in a new technology. This study presents data from a mail survey of 317 randomly selected managers of municipal and rural electric utilities in the U.S. None of these utilities had adopted photovoltaics (PVs) when they were surveyed. Measures of personal and institutional characteristics, technical knowledge, motivation, past experience, familiarity, and interest in PVs were analyzed using recursive path analysis. This analysis demonstrates that technical knowledge, typically identified as the primary influence on interest, is insufficient as a direct precursor. Rather, knowledge and experience together lead to familiarity, a state of comfort and confidence with an innovation. Familiarity demonstrates significant effects on managers' interest in adopting this solar electric technology. The model incorporating all of these independent variables accounts for nearly 50% of the variation in the dependent variable, interest. The effect of knowledge on interest is enhanced when its indirect effect via familiarity is included in the model. The combined (total) effect is roughly equivalent to that of the direct effect familiarity has on interest.;Municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives are at different stages of the adoption cycle; rural co-ops have adopted PVs more quickly. These sub-samples are compared to each other and against a census of sixty-five municipal and rural PV adopters. These comparisons indicate that at the earliest stages of the adoption process, familiarity exerts its greatest influence on interest, while at later stages the role of knowledge becomes more important. The latter finding confirms Everett Rogers' (1983) model of the innovation adoption decision process; the former conclusion demonstrates an important limitation in this conventional model.;Technological commercialization efforts should pay greater attention to the perceptions and communication patterns of potential adopters, and utilize strategies to increase their familiarity with the technology. Instead of exclusively emphasizing technical information about an innovation, efforts should promote early experimentation, in-house pilot projects, and small-scale trials to enhance confidence and comfort without great risk of failure.