Which Farmers Adopt Solar Energy? A Regression Analysis to Explain Adoption Decisions Over Time

Abstract

Farmers can play an important role in the critical renewable energy transition by generating solar energy. Farmers' adoption of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system is the result of a complex and interdependent array of technical, political, social, and economic factors. Under the regime of a covenant on energy and greenhouse gas emissions, the evolution of perceptions and responses to solar PV was monitored for a panel of 279 Dutch farmers in a unique series of surveys in 2015, 2018, and 2020. We observed that the willingness to reduce greenhouse gas emissions steadily increased from 35% in 2015 to 82% in 2020, while the perceptions toward solar PV adoption among Dutch farmers fluctuated over this period. We examine the determinants of solar PV uptake by Dutch farmers through multiple regression analyses. Consistent with the literature, our results indicate that behavioural intentions, the perceived importance of renewable energy, and farmers’ innovativeness are the most important determinants for solar PV adoption. Many farmers mentioned the decreased payback time as the most important motive to adopt solar PV. We argue that a stable long-term policy for renewable energy, as implemented in the Netherlands, creates attractive economic conditions for solar PV adoption, while the payback time is a critical factor in shaping farmers’ intentions and behaviour. We recommend more extensive research using panel datasets of farmers, while we also acknowledge the difficulty of obtaining high-quality panel data, which underlines the uniqueness of our analysis.

Keywords: Solar PV adoption, farmer behaviour, behavioural intentions, renewable energy policy, panel data