Dokshin Fedor A, Gherghina Mircea
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1Z5, Canada.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Jul 16;121(29):e2303519121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2303519121. Epub 2024 Jul 8.
The perceived risk of climate change and the sense of urgency for an energy transition are both politically polarized, especially in the United States. Yet, we know relatively little about how political polarization affects consumer energy preferences and behaviors. Here, we use the case of residential solar photovoltaics (PV) in New York State to 1) measure the partisan gap in solar adoption rates and 2) test whether more favorable economics of solar PV mute the effect of political identity. Using household-level, longitudinal data that include nearly 63,000 completed residential PV projects, we find evidence of a partisan gap in PV adoption. Democratic homeowners are approximately 1.45 times as likely to adopt solar PV as Republican homeowners. Republicans' rate of adoption is the lowest of all measured groups, behind Independents, unaffiliated voters, and homeowners not registered to vote. Crucially, however, Republicans in our sample appear to be the most attuned to the changing economics and financing options of solar PV. Our estimates suggest that 1) as homeowners' electricity rate increases relative to its long-run average, the adoption gap between Democ-rats and Republicans narrows, 2) that Republican PV adopters obtain systems with higher expected economic value, and 3) Republicans take greater advantage of alternative financing models, like leases and power purchase agreements, especially when the upfront costs of solar are high. The results demonstrate that political identity affects consumers' participation in the energy transition, but local context, including the local economics of solar, may mitigate the effect of personal politics.
气候变化的感知风险和能源转型的紧迫感在政治上都存在两极分化，尤其是在美国。然而，我们对政治两极分化如何影响消费者的能源偏好和行为知之甚少。在此，我们以纽约州的住宅太阳能光伏（PV）为例，1）衡量太阳能采用率方面的党派差距，2）测试太阳能光伏更有利的经济因素是否会减弱政治身份的影响。利用包含近63000个已完成住宅光伏项目的家庭层面纵向数据，我们发现了光伏采用方面存在党派差距的证据。民主党房主采用太阳能光伏的可能性大约是共和党房主的1.45倍。共和党的采用率在所有测量群体中是最低的，排在无党派人士、未登记选民和未登记投票的房主之后。然而，至关重要的是，我们样本中的共和党人似乎最关注太阳能光伏不断变化的经济因素和融资选择。我们的估计表明，1）随着房主的电费相对于其长期平均水平上升，民主党人和共和党人之间的采用差距缩小；2）共和党光伏采用者获得的系统具有更高的预期经济价值；3）共和党人更能利用租赁和电力购买协议等替代融资模式，尤其是在太阳能前期成本较高时。结果表明，政治身份会影响消费者参与能源转型，但当地情况，包括太阳能的当地经济因素，可能会减轻个人政治的影响。
