Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Household Preferences Of Decentralized Solar Photovoltaic And Thermal Systems, Roozbeh Ghasemi, Yue Li, Zhongming Lu, Ju-Chin Huang, Weiwei Mo

Student Research Projects

Small-scale, residential solar systems have been increasingly recognized as a key sector of future solar capacity growth and carbon emission reduction in cities. This study investigated customer preferences of solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) systems to facilitate their broader residential penetration. A discrete choice experiment was designed and administered through Amazon Mechanical Turk targeting two testbeds: Boston, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. Six system features were investigated, including system type, ownership, upfront cost, annual savings, environmental benefits, and neighbor’s choices. The collected data were then analyzed using latent class choice modeling to identify the hidden classes of unique preference characteristics and …