Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036

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Viewpoint

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 abstract

Article history: Energy is essential to human beings. The increasing demand of energy has triggered the public scrutiny
Received 17 September 2010 on the sustainability issues associated with the energy production and transmission. There have been a
Accepted 7 January 2011 large number of studies focusing on reducing the environmental impacts associated with the energy
Available online 1 February 2011
sector. Renewable energy sources such as solar energy have been prompted to mitigate these
Keywords: environmental impacts. This research adopted a quantitative approach to investigate the social
Social acceptance acceptance of solar energy technologies from end users’ perspective in Shandong province, China.
Solar energy A large scale questionnaire survey was conducted. The results show that there is a considerable high
China 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 dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40–45% compared to

the level of year 2005 (Xinhua News Agency, 2010). The renewable
China is the fastest-growing major economy in the world, with energy plays a critical role in achieving this goal (Zhao et al., 2010).
an average annual GDP growth rate of over 10% in past 30 years. The Chinese government promulgated a number of strategic plans
The rapid growth of economy has had massive implications to the and preferential policies to promote the developments of renewable
energy demand and associated environmental impacts. On one energies. Energy consumption from renewable energy resources will
hand, energy is essential for human beings for day-to-day livings account for 10% and 15% of total energy consumptions in 2010 and
and economy developments. In 2008, the total primary energy 2020, respectively (CSC, 2010).
consumption surged to 2850 million tonnes of coal equivalent The last decade has witnessed the strong growth of utilization of
(tce) in China (CNBS, 2009). On the other hand, it is well solar energy in China which is largely due to the preferential policies
recognized that the exploitation and production of energy sources issued by the Chinese government. Mallett (2007) stressed that the
has a certain level of impacts on the environment. This is importance of social acceptance should not be overlooked in renew-
particularly the case for the utilization of conventional energy able energy development projects. This is reinforced by Sauter and
sources. Coal still dominates the energy mix in China, accounting Watson (2007) who stated that social acceptance from the local
for as high as 68.7% of the total energy consumption (CNBS, 2009). community is ‘‘a prerequisite’’ for public infrastructures such as the
Electricity from coal-fired power plants takes 81.8% of the total large scale and micro-generation renewable energy projects. As
power generation (CNEB, 2010a). The massive pollutants emis- China is devoting to the development of solar energy, it is necessary
sions from energy sector have caused significant negative impacts to understand the current situation of local population’s social
on environmental quality. acceptance on solar energy. In this study, a questionnaire is designed
To respond to these concerns, renewable energy sources have to assess the social acceptance of solar energy technologies in China
been promoted in many countries. The utilization of renewable from end users’ perspective.
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 2. Solar energy in China and Shandong Province

There are abundant solar energy resources in China. The available

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 158 5313 9639; fax: +86 531 8839 5877. zone of solar energy, where annual hours of sunlight are more than
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (X. Yuan). 2200 and annual irradiation amount is above 5000 MJ/m2 has a

0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.01.003
1032 X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036

share of more than 67% of soil area in China (Liu et al., 2010). In Production capacity of SWH ranks first in China. Shandong is in the
2008, China produced 1.78 GW of solar panels, about 26% of the abundant zone of solar energy. In 2008, the production of solar hot
world production. The accumulative installed capacity of solar water heater surpassed 10 million m2 and the accumulative
power reached 1500 MW at the same year (NDRC, 2009). At present, installed collector area of SWH reached 20 million m2 (ECOSP,
the annual installed area of solar water heater (SWH) is about 2008). The recent development goals for solar energy utilization
20 million m2. The accumulative installed area of SWH has sur- are to install 13.2 million m2 of SWH, 50 MW of solar lighting and
passed 0.125 billion m2, which accounts for over 60% of total world 300 thousand m2 of solar greenhouses before year 2012 (CDSP,
amount (NDRC, 2009). The projected solar power capacity is 2008; SPG, 2009).
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 3. Social acceptance of renewable energy
power tripled in last five years, reaching 156 MW in 2009. Issued
in 2007, the Medium and Long-term Development Plan for Renew- There is an increasing level of attention been paid to the social
able Energy set up a target that the accumulative installed acceptance of technologies, innovation and policies related to the
capacity of solar PV will reach 300 MW in 2010. This goal has climate change. Upham et al. (2009) conducted a large scale study in
been achieved in 2009, one year ahead of the schedule. An even United Kingdom to investigate the main theoretical issues in
more ambitious target is set in the New Energy Industrial Devel- relation to social acceptance and a broader range of energy tech-
opment Plan (draft) that the accumulative installed capacity of nologies. The references cited in this recent review are illustrative.
solar PV will reach 5000 and 20000 MW in 2015 and 2020, Shackley et al. (2009) investigated the social acceptance of CO2
respectively (NDRC, 2010). capture and storage (CCS) in Europe which found that the
As for SWH, the annual installed area increased 8 times in last majority of respondents are supportive of incorporating CCS into
ten years (see Fig. 2). According to the Medium and Long-term the national plan to reduce the carbon emission. Wolsink (2010)
Development Plan for renewable energy, the accumulative installed pointed out that it helps to improve the social acceptance of
area will surge to 150 million m2 and 300 m2 in 2010 and 2020, environmental policies by engaging local residents into the policy
respectively (NDRC, 2007). making process. Coad and Woersdorfer (2009)’s study showed
This research was carried out in Jinan, the capital city of that social acceptance of green cars from consumers will be
Shandong Province. There are 271 SWH manufacturers in Shandong. 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)
350000 pointed out that it is hard to achieve the goal of renewable
Annual installed capacity energy development with low level of social acceptance therefore
300000 /kWp social acceptance should be taken into consideration during
Accumulative installed policy making. The social acceptance of local residents to the
250000
capacity /kWp renewable energy technologies is influential not only to the
200000 renewable energy project itself but also to the success of sustain-
able development of that region (Rı́o and Burguillo, 2008).
150000 According to Elghali et al. (2007), social acceptance is a crucial
component of lifecycle sustainability assessment framework of
100000 biomass power developments (see also Assefa and Frostell, 2007).
Studies on social acceptance of renewable energies were
50000 conducted in both large scale grid-connected projects and small
scale stand-alone projects (Maruyama et al., 2007; Zoellner et al.,
0 2008). Rogers et al. (2008) investigated the small scale renewable
80

85

90

95

00

02

04

05

06

07

08

09

energy developments in communities of UK. Their studies found

19

19

19

19

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

that majority of residents have a certain level of awareness of

Fig. 1. Annual and accumulative installed capacity of solar PV in China. renewable energies and are supportive of the implementation.
Source: CNEB (2010b); OCREDP (2008).
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
160
the social acceptance of renewable energy innovation, i.e. socio-
Annual installed area
140 political acceptance, community acceptance and market acceptance.
/million m2
These three dimensions covered the social, political, environmental
120 Accumulative installed and economical aspects of social acceptance. Schweizer-Ries (2008)
area /million m2 pointed out there are two types of social acceptance, i.e. active
100
acceptance and passive acceptance. The factors determining the
80 active or passive acceptance include: changes to the landscape,
economical contribution, social justice, maturity of technology and
60
the contribution towards the environmental protection.
40 This research focuses on the social acceptance of solar energy
technologies from the end users’ perspective.
20
0
4. Methodology
98

99

00

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09
19

19

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

Fig. 2. Annual and accumulative installed area of SWH in China. In order to investigate the social acceptance issues of solar
Source: PSSTU (2008); Tong (2008). 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 10–20, 21–40 and 41–60 age groups are similar and are higher
based on literature review and has been followed by a pilot than the aged group (more than 60 years old).
testing. No major changes were made as a result of satisfactory
pilot testing. The respondents covered both urban areas and rural
5.1.3. Education
areas in Jinan city, Shandong province in order to compare the
About 60% of respondents have obtained tertiary education
perceptions. Door-to-door questionnaire survey was conducted.
degree. As indicated in Table 3, all respondents obtained under-
About 2/3 of the residents agreed to participate in the survey. If a
graduate or higher degrees have been aware of the SWH. It seems
resident is willing to participate in this survey, a questionnaire
that the education plays a big role in the public awareness
was distributed to him/her and retrieved after the questionnaire
of SWH.
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. 5.1.4. Income
There are three sections in the questionnaire. The first section As shown in Table 4, the degree of awareness of SWH shows a
is designed to retrieve the profile of respondents such as: age, general increasing pattern associated with the increase of income.
education and income. The second section and the third section The respondents with income 40–60 k RMB are most aware of
are designed to understand the perceptions of respondents on the SWH than other income groups. It appears that local residents
implementation of SWH and the solar PV, respectively. The with lower income are generally less aware of solar energy
questions covered the awareness of solar energy technologies, technologies than those with higher income. More efforts are
the public attitudes towards the implementation of solar energy, required to enhance the awareness of public across the
the extent of installation, usage of these technologies and issues income range.
associated with the implementation and utilization.
5.2. Solar PV

5. Public awareness of solar water heater and 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 survey results showed that 73% of survey respondents are the implementation of solar PV. Only 1.4% of urban respondents
aware of SWH however only 26% of respondents are aware of reported the installation of solar PV at home whereas no rural
solar PV. Obviously SWH has gained more public awareness respondents reported the installation at all. This will be discussed
compared to solar PV, which subsequently affects the populariza- in Section 7.2.
tion of solar PV technologies.
Table 3
5.1. Solar water heater The public awareness of SWH across education ranges.

Options Education
5.1.1. Area
Comparing responses from different areas, urban residents School Undergraduate Postgraduate
are generally more aware of SWH than those from rural areas
I know very much 19 58 12
(see Table 1).
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
5.1.2. Age
Total 511 668 92
Table 2 indicates that respondents aged 41–60 are most aware
of SWH than other age groups. The awareness percentages of the

Table 1 Table 4
The public awareness of SWH from urban areas and rural areas. The public awareness of SWH across income ranges.

Options Area Options Annual income range (thousand RMB)

Urban areas Rural areas o20 20–40 40–60 460 Keep private

I know very much 87 2 I know very much 29 27 20 8 5

I know to some extent 704 134 I know to some extent 290 281 164 64 39
I’ve heard of it 247 81 I’ve heard of it 173 92 30 19 14
I don’t know at all 13 3 I don’t know at all 6 8 1 1 0
Total 1051 220 Total 498 408 215 92 58

Table 2 Table 5
The public awareness of SWH across age ranges. The public awarness of solar PV from urban areas and rural areas.

Options Age Options Area

10–20 21–40 41–60 460 Urban areas Rural areas

I know very much 3 49 34 3 I know very much 13 0

I know to some extent 39 558 209 32 I know to some extent 304 19
I’ve heard of it 14 226 75 13 I’ve heard of it 655 182
I don’t know at all 2 8 3 3 I don’t know at all 79 19
Total 58 841 321 51 Total 1051 220
1034 X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036

6. Public attitudes towards the implementation of solar water 7.1.2. Location

heater and solar PV at home 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
Respondents were asked their attitudes towards the adoption story. As all SWH in low rise buildings are non-pressurized and
of solar energy technologies at home. This question is in parti- roof located, low hot water pressure and small hot water flow
cular designed to investigate the level of acceptance of local results in the lower installation ratio in higher stories. On the
residents to the adoption of solar energy technologies ‘‘in my other hand, there is a long distance between the residents in
backyard’’. As shown in Table 6, around 63% of respondents lower stories and the roof. They have to release cold water in the
agreed and strongly agreed that solar water heaters should be connection pipe of SWH before accessing to hot water, which
implemented at home. In contrary, only 0.7% of respondents results in the waste of water resource and not being able to get
strongly agreed that solar PV should be implemented at home. hot water immediately. The data in Table 8 shows that the first
It indicated that SWH is more acceptal than Solar PV from local and second floor has a lower installation ratio compared with the
residents’ perspective. The following section (Section 7) will middle stories.
discuss the utilization of SWH and solar PV at home.
7.1.3. Capacity and population
More than 70% of respondents that installed SWH at home
7. The utilization of solar water heater and solar PV at home reported with 3–4 family members. 78.4% of installed SWH
(excluding unknown volume) have the capacity of 90–180 l (see
In fact, 59.2% of urban respondents have reported the installa- Table 9). Te number of family members is not a dominating factor
tion of SWH whereas this percentage is as low as 33.2% for rural for the capacity of SWH.
areas. Obviously there is great potential to popularize it in
rural areas. 7.1.4. Types of solar water heaters
There are two types of SWH in the Chinese market:
7.1. Solar water heater
 Integrated SWH: where the tank acts as both storage and solar
7.1.1. Building type collector. Integrated SWH is non-pressurized and depends on
As shown in Table 7, around 84.7% of respondents living in gravity flow to deliver water. It is simple, efficient and with
high rise buildings ( 47 stories) have installed SWH. This percen- low cost.
tage is down to 51.2% for those respondents living in low rise  Split SWH: has a solar collector on roof or outside wall and
buildings ( r7 stories). The installation ratio in low rise residen- water tanks inside the house. Heat is transferred and
tial buildings is much lower than that of high rise residential exchanged by heat transfer fluid.
buildings. The main reasons are:
According to the survey, 77% of respondents chose the inte-
 Low rise buildings have been constructed a long time ago grated SWH rather than split SWH. It is recognized by respon-
where the installation of SWH was not taken into considera- dents that split SWH is more complicated whereas taking more
tion during the design. There is no sufficient space on the roof indoor spaces compared to integrated SWH.
for such installation.
 Some of low rise residential buildings have central supply of 7.1.5. Purposes of solar water heaters
hot water. There is no much demand for solar hot water. Respondents reported a variety of purposes of SWH such as
 Most of high rise residential buildings are recently built where shower, drinking and cooking. Among these purposes, shower,
the installation of SWH has been taken into consideration cleaning and laundry account for 82.1% of usage (see Table 10).
during the design. In fact, it is not unusual that the facility This is a reflection of living style of residents in China as the main
manager organized the installation of SWH for all buildings purpose of installing SWH is for shower. Drinking accounts for as
within the residential block if the householder is supportive. low as 1.1% of usage mainly due to the healthy consideration.

Table 8
Table 6 Location of the installation of SWH in low rise building.
The public attitudes towards the implementation of SWH and solar PV.
Story no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total
Options SWH Solar PV
Numbers 71 86 112 132 98 75 10 584
Strongly agree 212 9
Agree 584 203
Neutral 372 826 Table 9
Disagree 67 215 Volume of SWH installed.
Strongly disagree 36 18
Total 1271 1271 Volume (litres) Number of family members Total

2 3 4 5 45

Table 7 V r 60 8 9 7 3 2 29
Location of the installation of SWH. 60o V r 90 9 29 10 2 1 51
90o V r 120 31 97 45 22 6 201
Low rise (r 7 stories) High rise ( 47 stories) 120 oV r 150 13 38 11 8 0 70
150 oV r 180 21 73 32 12 9 147
Installed 584 111 Z 180 5 15 12 2 1 35
Not installed 556 20 Volume unknown 30 82 33 11 6 162
Total 1140 131 Total 117 343 150 60 25 695
 X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036 1035

Table 10 Table 12
Purposes for the installation of SWH. Issues associated with the implementation and utilization of SWH.

Purposes Numbers Percentages Issues Numbers Percentages

Shower 321 46.2 Pipe frozen and blocked in winter 266 38.3
Cleaning 127 18.3 Leaking water tank and pipe 151 21.7
Laundry 122 17.6 Instable water supply 142 20.4
Cooking 43 6.1 Low water temperature 82 11.8
Dishwashing 74 10.7 Others 54 7.8
Drinking 8 1.1

Table 11 Table 13
Reasons for the installation of SWH. Reasons for not installing solar PV at home.

Reasons Numbers Percentages Reasons Numbers Percentages

Convenience of hot water 332 47.8 Low level of application 668 53.2
Energy conservation 244 35.1 High capital cost 293 23.3
Environment protection 91 13.1 Complicated auxiliary system 99 7.9
Durability 28 4.0 Low volume of storage battery 87 6.9
Low voltage 46 3.7
Low horsepower 63 5.0

7.1.6. Reasons for installation of solar water heater

In regards to the reasons to install SWH, the major reasons are 7.2.2. Reasons for choosing solar PV
convenience of accessing the hot water and energy conversation, Respondents highlighted the reasons for installing solar PV at
according to respondents (see Table 11). In other words, conve- home as energy conservation (75%) and environment protection
nience and economy are considered most important factors. In (25%). It is well recognized by those respondents having solar PV
contrary, environment protection and durability are not consid- installed at home that solar PV power is a proper supplementary
ered as critical as the two previously mentioned factors during of coal-fired electricity.
that decision.
7.2.3. Issues associated with the implementation/utilization
7.1.7. Frequency of the utilization All respondents that have experienced difficulties to the
The survey results show that 93% of respondents reported implementation of solar PV are asked to identify the major issues.
using SWH at least once daily. It indicated that SWH has brought Maturity of technology, stability and durability are major con-
convenience to residents and has been fully utilized. This will cerns of respondents. They made recommendations that the
motivate the implementation of SWH in more households. following areas need to be improved: volume of storage battery,
cost, efficiency, horsepower, control system and safety of solar PV.

7.1.8. Issues associated with the implementation/utilization 7.2.4. Reasons for not installing solar PV
All respondents that have experienced difficulties to the The respondents that did not install solar PV were asked to
implementation and utilization of SWH were asked to identify identify the major reasons. Respondents highlighted the low level
the major issues. The major issues are: pipe is frozen and blocked of application as the main reason for not installing solar PV at
during winter, water tank and pipe leaking, instable water supply home (see Table 13). In other words, there is lack of awareness of
and low water temperature (see Table 12). solar PV in residents. Another main reason is high capital cost.
38.3% of residents have experienced pipe frozen and blocked in Other reasons are: low voltage, low horsepower, low volume of
winter due to two reasons. First, Jinan is located in North China storage battery and complicated auxiliary systems.
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 8. Conclusions
popular due to the lower price.
Respondents recommended the major areas need to be This research adopted a quantitative approach to investigate
improved are: resistance to frost and thermal insulation. Other the social acceptance issues associated with two most popular
areas to be improved include: physical appearance, thermal solar energy technologies, i.e. SWH and solar PV from end users’
performance, control system, safety and volume and stability of perspective. Door-to-door questionnaire survey was conducted
hot water supply. 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
7.2. Solar PV
higher level of awareness of solar energy technologies compared
to rural residents. Similarly, more respondents showed support to
There are only 15 respondents, about 1.2% of the total sample,
the implementation of SWH than Solar PV at home. In addition,
reported the installation of solar PV at home. As a result, the
the implementation of SWH is more popularized than the solar
discussion on solar PV is not as detailed as the discussion on SWH.
PV. Even though there is a reasonable level of public awareness,
solar PV has not been widely implemented. Income, age and
7.2.1. Purposes education of residents play a role in the level of awareness of solar
According to survey respondents, the purposes of the installa- energy technologies and the decision to implement these tech-
tion of solar PV at home are: lighting, heating and cooling, hot nologies at home. Survey results show the different patterns of
water system, electricity supply. installation of SWH in high rise buildings from low rise buildings.
1036 X. Yuan et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1031–1036

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