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Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036

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Energy Policy

0301-42

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E-m

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Social acceptance of solar energy technologies in China—End users’ perspective

Xueliang Yuan a,n, Jian Zuo b, Chunyuan Ma a

a School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, PR China b School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5001, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 17 September 2010

Accepted 7 January 2011 Available online 1 February 2011

Keywords:

Social acceptance

Solar energy

China

15/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. A

016/j.enpol.2011.01.003

esponding author. Tel.: + 86 158 5313 9639;

ail addresses: [email protected], y

a b s t r a c t

Energy is essential to human beings. The increasing demand of energy has triggered the public scrutiny

on the sustainability issues associated with the energy production and transmission. There have been a

large number of studies focusing on reducing the environmental impacts associated with the energy

sector. Renewable energy sources such as solar energy have been prompted to mitigate these

environmental impacts. This research adopted a quantitative approach to investigate the social

acceptance of solar energy technologies from end users’ perspective in Shandong province, China.

A large scale questionnaire survey was conducted. The results show that there is a considerable high

level of social acceptance and public awareness of solar water heater. However, another major

application of solar energy, solar PV has not gained a high level of social acceptance or public

awareness in Shandong. This study provides useful references for policy makers to further promote the

utilization of solar energy innovations.

& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

China is the fastest-growing major economy in the world, with an average annual GDP growth rate of over 10% in past 30 years. The rapid growth of economy has had massive implications to the energy demand and associated environmental impacts. On one hand, energy is essential for human beings for day-to-day livings and economy developments. In 2008, the total primary energy consumption surged to 2850 million tonnes of coal equivalent (tce) in China (CNBS, 2009). On the other hand, it is well recognized that the exploitation and production of energy sources has a certain level of impacts on the environment. This is particularly the case for the utilization of conventional energy sources. Coal still dominates the energy mix in China, accounting for as high as 68.7% of the total energy consumption (CNBS, 2009). Electricity from coal-fired power plants takes 81.8% of the total power generation (CNEB, 2010a). The massive pollutants emis- sions from energy sector have caused significant negative impacts on environmental quality.

To respond to these concerns, renewable energy sources have been promoted in many countries. The utilization of renewable energy sources helps to reduce the environmental impacts such as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, the Chinese government has devoted to reduce the intensity of carbon

ll rights reserved.

fax: + 86 531 8839 5877.

[email protected] (X. Yuan).

dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40–45% compared to the level of year 2005 (Xinhua News Agency, 2010). The renewable energy plays a critical role in achieving this goal (Zhao et al., 2010). The Chinese government promulgated a number of strategic plans and preferential policies to promote the developments of renewable energies. Energy consumption from renewable energy resources will account for 10% and 15% of total energy consumptions in 2010 and 2020, respectively (CSC, 2010).

The last decade has witnessed the strong growth of utilization of solar energy in China which is largely due to the preferential policies issued by the Chinese government. Mallett (2007) stressed that the importance of social acceptance should not be overlooked in renew- able energy development projects. This is reinforced by Sauter and Watson (2007) who stated that social acceptance from the local community is ‘‘a prerequisite’’ for public infrastructures such as the large scale and micro-generation renewable energy projects. As China is devoting to the development of solar energy, it is necessary to understand the current situation of local population’s social acceptance on solar energy. In this study, a questionnaire is designed to assess the social acceptance of solar energy technologies in China from end users’ perspective.

2. Solar energy in China and Shandong Province

There are abundant solar energy resources in China. The available zone of solar energy, where annual hours of sunlight are more than 2200 and annual irradiation amount is above 5000 MJ/m2 has a

X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–10361032

share of more than 67% of soil area in China (Liu et al., 2010). In 2008, China produced 1.78 GW of solar panels, about 26% of the world production. The accumulative installed capacity of solar power reached 1500 MW at the same year (NDRC, 2009). At present, the annual installed area of solar water heater (SWH) is about 20 million m2. The accumulative installed area of SWH has sur- passed 0.125 billion m2, which accounts for over 60% of total world amount (NDRC, 2009). The projected solar power capacity is 180 GW by 2020 and the total collector area of SWH will increase to 0.3 billion m2 at the same period (NDRC, 2007).

As shown in Fig. 1, the annual installed capacity of solar PV power tripled in last five years, reaching 156 MW in 2009. Issued in 2007, the Medium and Long-term Development Plan for Renew- able Energy set up a target that the accumulative installed capacity of solar PV will reach 300 MW in 2010. This goal has been achieved in 2009, one year ahead of the schedule. An even more ambitious target is set in the New Energy Industrial Devel- opment Plan (draft) that the accumulative installed capacity of solar PV will reach 5000 and 20000 MW in 2015 and 2020, respectively (NDRC, 2010).

As for SWH, the annual installed area increased 8 times in last ten years (see Fig. 2). According to the Medium and Long-term Development Plan for renewable energy, the accumulative installed area will surge to 150 million m2 and 300 m2 in 2010 and 2020, respectively (NDRC, 2007).

This research was carried out in Jinan, the capital city of Shandong Province. There are 271 SWH manufacturers in Shandong.

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Annual installed capacity /kWp

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Fig. 1. Annual and accumulative installed capacity of solar PV in China. Source: CNEB (2010b); OCREDP (2008).

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Fig. 2. Annual and accumulative installed area of SWH in China. Source: PSSTU (2008); Tong (2008).

Production capacity of SWH ranks first in China. Shandong is in the abundant zone of solar energy. In 2008, the production of solar hot water heater surpassed 10 million m2 and the accumulative installed collector area of SWH reached 20 million m2 (ECOSP, 2008). The recent development goals for solar energy utilization are to install 13.2 million m2 of SWH, 50 MW of solar lighting and 300 thousand m2 of solar greenhouses before year 2012 (CDSP, 2008; SPG, 2009).

3. Social acceptance of renewable energy

There is an increasing level of attention been paid to the social acceptance of technologies, innovation and policies related to the climate change. Upham et al. (2009) conducted a large scale study in United Kingdom to investigate the main theoretical issues in relation to social acceptance and a broader range of energy tech- nologies. The references cited in this recent review are illustrative.

Shackley et al. (2009) investigated the social acceptance of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) in Europe which found that the majority of respondents are supportive of incorporating CCS into the national plan to reduce the carbon emission. Wolsink (2010) pointed out that it helps to improve the social acceptance of environmental policies by engaging local residents into the policy making process. Coad and Woersdorfer (2009)’s study showed that social acceptance of green cars from consumers will be improved with the introduction of fiscal incentive and promotion.

Some scholars also shed lights on the social acceptance of renewable energy technologies. Wüstenhagen et al. (2007) pointed out that it is hard to achieve the goal of renewable energy development with low level of social acceptance therefore social acceptance should be taken into consideration during policy making. The social acceptance of local residents to the renewable energy technologies is influential not only to the renewable energy project itself but also to the success of sustain- able development of that region (Rı́o and Burguillo, 2008). According to Elghali et al. (2007), social acceptance is a crucial component of lifecycle sustainability assessment framework of biomass power developments (see also Assefa and Frostell, 2007).

Studies on social acceptance of renewable energies were conducted in both large scale grid-connected projects and small scale stand-alone projects (Maruyama et al., 2007; Zoellner et al., 2008). Rogers et al. (2008) investigated the small scale renewable energy developments in communities of UK. Their studies found that majority of residents have a certain level of awareness of renewable energies and are supportive of the implementation. However, only a small number of residents are willing to participate into a community-based renewable energy projects.

Wüstenhagen et al. (2007) developed a 3-dimension model for the social acceptance of renewable energy innovation, i.e. socio- political acceptance, community acceptance and market acceptance. These three dimensions covered the social, political, environmental and economical aspects of social acceptance. Schweizer-Ries (2008) pointed out there are two types of social acceptance, i.e. active acceptance and passive acceptance. The factors determining the active or passive acceptance include: changes to the landscape, economical contribution, social justice, maturity of technology and the contribution towards the environmental protection.

This research focuses on the social acceptance of solar energy technologies from the end users’ perspective.

4. Methodology

In order to investigate the social acceptance issues of solar energy in China, a large scale questionnaire survey was conducted

X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036 1033

between June and August 2010. The questionnaire was developed based on literature review and has been followed by a pilot testing. No major changes were made as a result of satisfactory pilot testing. The respondents covered both urban areas and rural areas in Jinan city, Shandong province in order to compare the perceptions. Door-to-door questionnaire survey was conducted. About 2/3 of the residents agreed to participate in the survey. If a resident is willing to participate in this survey, a questionnaire was distributed to him/her and retrieved after the questionnaire was completed. As a result, a total of 1271 questionnaires were distributed and returned. 1051 copies were retrieved from urban areas and 220 copies were retrieved from rural areas.

There are three sections in the questionnaire. The first section is designed to retrieve the profile of respondents such as: age, education and income. The second section and the third section are designed to understand the perceptions of respondents on the implementation of SWH and the solar PV, respectively. The questions covered the awareness of solar energy technologies, the public attitudes towards the implementation of solar energy, the extent of installation, usage of these technologies and issues associated with the implementation and utilization.

Table 3 The public awareness of SWH across education ranges.

Options Education

School Undergraduate Postgraduate

I know very much 19 58 12

I know to some extent 305 466 67

I’ve heard of it 171 144 13

I don’t know at all 16 0 0

Total 511 668 92

5. Public awareness of solar water heater and solar PV

The survey results showed that 73% of survey respondents are aware of SWH however only 26% of respondents are aware of solar PV. Obviously SWH has gained more public awareness compared to solar PV, which subsequently affects the populariza- tion of solar PV technologies.

5.1. Solar water heater

5.1.1. Area

Comparing responses from different areas, urban residents are generally more aware of SWH than those from rural areas (see Table 1).

5.1.2. Age

Table 2 indicates that respondents aged 41–60 are most aware of SWH than other age groups. The awareness percentages of the

Table 1 The public awareness of SWH from urban areas and rural areas.

Options Area

Urban areas Rural areas

I know very much 87 2

I know to some extent 704 134

I’ve heard of it 247 81

I don’t know at all 13 3

Total 1051 220

Table 2 The public awareness of SWH across age ranges.

Options Age

10–20 21–40 41–60 460

I know very much 3 49 34 3

I know to some extent 39 558 209 32

I’ve heard of it 14 226 75 13

I don’t know at all 2 8 3 3

Total 58 841 321 51

10–20, 21–40 and 41–60 age groups are similar and are higher than the aged group (more than 60 years old).

5.1.3. Education

About 60% of respondents have obtained tertiary education degree. As indicated in Table 3, all respondents obtained under- graduate or higher degrees have been aware of the SWH. It seems that the education plays a big role in the public awareness of SWH.

5.1.4. Income

As shown in Table 4, the degree of awareness of SWH shows a general increasing pattern associated with the increase of income. The respondents with income 40–60 k RMB are most aware of SWH than other income groups. It appears that local residents with lower income are generally less aware of solar energy technologies than those with higher income. More efforts are required to enhance the awareness of public across the income range.

5.2. Solar PV

As shown in Table 5, urban residents are generally aware of the solar PV than rural residents. However, this is not reflected in the implementation of solar PV. Only 1.4% of urban respondents reported the installation of solar PV at home whereas no rural respondents reported the installation at all. This will be discussed in Section 7.2.

Table 4 The public awareness of SWH across income ranges.

Options Annual income range (thousand RMB)

o20 20–40 40–60 460 Keep private

I know very much 29 27 20 8 5

I know to some extent 290 281 164 64 39

I’ve heard of it 173 92 30 19 14

I don’t know at all 6 8 1 1 0

Total 498 408 215 92 58

Table 5 The public awarness of solar PV from urban areas and rural areas.

Options Area

Urban areas Rural areas

I know very much 13 0

I know to some extent 304 19

I’ve heard of it 655 182

I don’t know at all 79 19

Total 1051 220

X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–10361034

6. Public attitudes towards the implementation of solar water heater and solar PV at home

Respondents were asked their attitudes towards the adoption of solar energy technologies at home. This question is in parti- cular designed to investigate the level of acceptance of local residents to the adoption of solar energy technologies ‘‘in my backyard’’. As shown in Table 6, around 63% of respondents agreed and strongly agreed that solar water heaters should be implemented at home. In contrary, only 0.7% of respondents strongly agreed that solar PV should be implemented at home. It indicated that SWH is more acceptal than Solar PV from local residents’ perspective. The following section (Section 7) will discuss the utilization of SWH and solar PV at home.

7. The utilization of solar water heater and solar PV at home

In fact, 59.2% of urban respondents have reported the installa- tion of SWH whereas this percentage is as low as 33.2% for rural areas. Obviously there is great potential to popularize it in rural areas.

7.1. Solar water heater

7.1.1. Building type

As shown in Table 7, around 84.7% of respondents living in high rise buildings (47 stories) have installed SWH. This percen- tage is down to 51.2% for those respondents living in low rise buildings (r7 stories). The installation ratio in low rise residen- tial buildings is much lower than that of high rise residential buildings. The main reasons are:

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Tab The

O

S

A

N

D

S

T

Tab Loc

In

N

T

Low rise buildings have been constructed a long time ago where the installation of SWH was not taken into considera- tion during the design. There is no sufficient space on the roof for such installation.

�

Some of low rise residential buildings have central supply of

hot water. There is no much demand for solar hot water.

�

Most of high rise residential buildings are recently built where

the installation of SWH has been taken into consideration during the design. In fact, it is not unusual that the facility manager organized the installation of SWH for all buildings within the residential block if the householder is supportive.

le 6 public attitudes towards the implementation of SWH and solar PV.

ptions SWH Solar PV

trongly agree 212 9

gree 584 203

eutral 372 826

isagree 67 215

trongly disagree 36 18

otal 1271 1271

le 7 ation of the installation of SWH.

Low rise (r7 stories) High rise (47 stories)

stalled 584 111

ot installed 556 20

otal 1140 131

7.1.2. Location

As shown in Table 8, in low rise buildings, 22.6% of SWH were installed at the 4th floor whereas only 1.7% were installed at 7th story. As all SWH in low rise buildings are non-pressurized and roof located, low hot water pressure and small hot water flow results in the lower installation ratio in higher stories. On the other hand, there is a long distance between the residents in lower stories and the roof. They have to release cold water in the connection pipe of SWH before accessing to hot water, which results in the waste of water resource and not being able to get hot water immediately. The data in Table 8 shows that the first and second floor has a lower installation ratio compared with the middle stories.

7.1.3. Capacity and population

More than 70% of respondents that installed SWH at home reported with 3–4 family members. 78.4% of installed SWH (excluding unknown volume) have the capacity of 90–180 l (see Table 9). Te number of family members is not a dominating factor for the capacity of SWH.

7.1.4. Types of solar water heaters

There are two types of SWH in the Chinese market:

�

Tab Loc

S

N

Tab Vol

V

V

6

9

1

1

Z

V

T

Integrated SWH: where the tank acts as both storage and solar collector. Integrated SWH is non-pressurized and depends on gravity flow to deliver water. It is simple, efficient and with low cost.

�

Split SWH: has a solar collector on roof or outside wall and

water tanks inside the house. Heat is transferred and exchanged by heat transfer fluid.

According to the survey, 77% of respondents chose the inte- grated SWH rather than split SWH. It is recognized by respon- dents that split SWH is more complicated whereas taking more indoor spaces compared to integrated SWH.

7.1.5. Purposes of solar water heaters

Respondents reported a variety of purposes of SWH such as shower, drinking and cooking. Among these purposes, shower, cleaning and laundry account for 82.1% of usage (see Table 10). This is a reflection of living style of residents in China as the main purpose of installing SWH is for shower. Drinking accounts for as low as 1.1% of usage mainly due to the healthy consideration.

le 8 ation of the installation of SWH in low rise building.

tory no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

umbers 71 86 112 132 98 75 10 584

le 9 ume of SWH installed.

olume (litres) Number of family members Total

2 3 4 5 45

r60 8 9 7 3 2 29 0oVr90 9 29 10 2 1 51 0oVr120 31 97 45 22 6 201 20oVr150 13 38 11 8 0 70 50oVr180 21 73 32 12 9 147

180 5 15 12 2 1 35

olume unknown 30 82 33 11 6 162

otal 117 343 150 60 25 695

Table 10 Purposes for the installation of SWH.

Purposes Numbers Percentages

Shower 321 46.2

Cleaning 127 18.3

Laundry 122 17.6

Cooking 43 6.1

Dishwashing 74 10.7

Drinking 8 1.1

Table 11 Reasons for the installation of SWH.

Reasons Numbers Percentages

Convenience of hot water 332 47.8

Energy conservation 244 35.1

Environment protection 91 13.1

Durability 28 4.0

Table 12 Issues associated with the implementation and utilization of SWH.

Issues Numbers Percentages

Pipe frozen and blocked in winter 266 38.3

Leaking water tank and pipe 151 21.7

Instable water supply 142 20.4

Low water temperature 82 11.8

Others 54 7.8

Table 13 Reasons for not installing solar PV at home.

Reasons Numbers Percentages

Low level of application 668 53.2

High capital cost 293 23.3

Complicated auxiliary system 99 7.9

Low volume of storage battery 87 6.9

Low voltage 46 3.7

Low horsepower 63 5.0

X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036 1035

7.1.6. Reasons for installation of solar water heater

In regards to the reasons to install SWH, the major reasons are convenience of accessing the hot water and energy conversation, according to respondents (see Table 11). In other words, conve- nience and economy are considered most important factors. In contrary, environment protection and durability are not consid- ered as critical as the two previously mentioned factors during that decision.

7.1.7. Frequency of the utilization

The survey results show that 93% of respondents reported using SWH at least once daily. It indicated that SWH has brought convenience to residents and has been fully utilized. This will motivate the implementation of SWH in more households.

7.1.8. Issues associated with the implementation/utilization

All respondents that have experienced difficulties to the implementation and utilization of SWH were asked to identify the major issues. The major issues are: pipe is frozen and blocked during winter, water tank and pipe leaking, instable water supply and low water temperature (see Table 12).

38.3% of residents have experienced pipe frozen and blocked in winter due to two reasons. First, Jinan is located in North China where sub-zero temperatures are encountered in winter. Second, most residents reported the installations of integrated SWHs. Although split SWH is antifreeze, integrated SWHs are more popular due to the lower price.

Respondents recommended the major areas need to be improved are: resistance to frost and thermal insulation. Other areas to be improved include: physical appearance, thermal performance, control system, safety and volume and stability of hot water supply.

7.2. Solar PV

There are only 15 respondents, about 1.2% of the total sample, reported the installation of solar PV at home. As a result, the discussion on solar PV is not as detailed as the discussion on SWH.

7.2.1. Purposes

According to survey respondents, the purposes of the installa- tion of solar PV at home are: lighting, heating and cooling, hot water system, electricity supply.

7.2.2. Reasons for choosing solar PV

Respondents highlighted the reasons for installing solar PV at home as energy conservation (75%) and environment protection (25%). It is well recognized by those respondents having solar PV installed at home that solar PV power is a proper supplementary of coal-fired electricity.

7.2.3. Issues associated with the implementation/utilization

All respondents that have experienced difficulties to the implementation of solar PV are asked to identify the major issues. Maturity of technology, stability and durability are major con- cerns of respondents. They made recommendations that the following areas need to be improved: volume of storage battery, cost, efficiency, horsepower, control system and safety of solar PV.

7.2.4. Reasons for not installing solar PV

The respondents that did not install solar PV were asked to identify the major reasons. Respondents highlighted the low level of application as the main reason for not installing solar PV at home (see Table 13). In other words, there is lack of awareness of solar PV in residents. Another main reason is high capital cost. Other reasons are: low voltage, low horsepower, low volume of storage battery and complicated auxiliary systems.

8. Conclusions

This research adopted a quantitative approach to investigate the social acceptance issues associated with two most popular solar energy technologies, i.e. SWH and solar PV from end users’ perspective. Door-to-door questionnaire survey was conducted with 1271 residents in urban and rural areas of Jinan city, Shandong province. The results show that SWH has gained higher level of public awareness than solar PV. Urban residents showed higher level of awareness of solar energy technologies compared to rural residents. Similarly, more respondents showed support to the implementation of SWH than Solar PV at home. In addition, the implementation of SWH is more popularized than the solar PV. Even though there is a reasonable level of public awareness, solar PV has not been widely implemented. Income, age and education of residents play a role in the level of awareness of solar energy technologies and the decision to implement these tech- nologies at home. Survey results show the different patterns of installation of SWH in high rise buildings from low rise buildings.

X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–10361036

Major purposes of implementing SWH and solar PV were identi- fied. This research also highlighted the areas to be improved for both technologies in China. These findings provide useful inputs to the policy making process.

Acknowledgements

This research is financially supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Project, Ministry of Education. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for their constructive and helpful comments.

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