IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i15p4625-d605189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How to Improve Effectiveness of Renewable Space Heating Programs by Better Understanding Homeowner—Installer Interactions

Author

Listed:
  • Alisa Freyre

    (Energy Efficiency Group, Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE), University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
    Services Industriels de Genève, 1219 Geneva, Switzerland
    Equal contribution.)

  • Stefano Cozza

    (Energy Efficiency Group, Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE), University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
    Equal contribution.)

  • Matthias Rüetschi

    (Services Industriels de Genève, 1219 Geneva, Switzerland)

  • Meinrad Bürer

    (Research & Development, EcoAct, 75008 Paris, France)

  • Marlyne Sahakian

    (Sociology Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland)

  • Martin K. Patel

    (Energy Efficiency Group, Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE), University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland)

Abstract

In this paper, we perform a literature review on the current state of knowledge about homeowners in the context of the adoption of renewable heating systems. Despite a considerable number of studies about homeowners, homeowner–installer interactions, and ways to improve the effectiveness of renewable heating programs, based on homeowner knowledge, have not yet been studied in much detail. To address these knowledge gaps, we conduct a qualitative study on single-family house owners who installed heat pumps and took part in a renewable heating program in Geneva, Switzerland. We cover homeowner practices in choosing installers and heating system types, homeowners’ feedback about heat pump installation and use, as well as their experience in participation in the renewable heating program. Based on the literature review and the findings from the interviews, we provide the following recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness of renewable heating programs: (a) support for homeowners should not be limited to financial incentives; (b) partnership programs with installers could help to increase the quality of installation services and enable homeowners to choose qualified installers; and (c) assisting homeowners in pre-qualification and ex-post analysis, in learning how to operate their renewable heating systems and in solving problems during the post-installation period, can contribute to improved technology reputation, which can, in turn, increase technology uptake by other homeowners.

Suggested Citation

  • Alisa Freyre & Stefano Cozza & Matthias Rüetschi & Meinrad Bürer & Marlyne Sahakian & Martin K. Patel, 2021. "How to Improve Effectiveness of Renewable Space Heating Programs by Better Understanding Homeowner—Installer Interactions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:15:p:4625-:d:605189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4625/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4625/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scarpa, Riccardo & Willis, Ken, 2010. "Willingness-to-pay for renewable energy: Primary and discretionary choice of British households' for micro-generation technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 129-136, January.
    2. Woersdorfer, Julia Sophie & Kaus, Wolfhard, 2011. "Will nonowners follow pioneer consumers in the adoption of solar thermal systems? Empirical evidence for northwestern Germany," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2282-2291.
    3. Sopha, Bertha Maya & Klöckner, Christian A. & Skjevrak, Geir & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2010. "Norwegian households' perception of wood pellet stove compared to air-to-air heat pump and electric heating," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3744-3754, July.
    4. Bickerstaff, Karen & Devine-Wright, Patrick & Butler, Catherine, 2015. "Living with low carbon technologies: An agenda for sharing and comparing qualitative energy research," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 241-249.
    5. Karytsas, Spyridon & Theodoropoulou, Helen, 2014. "Public awareness and willingness to adopt ground source heat pumps for domestic heating and cooling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 49-57.
    6. Mahapatra, Krushna & Gustavsson, Leif, 2009. "Influencing Swedish homeowners to adopt district heating system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 144-154, February.
    7. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2012. "Homeowners' preferences for adopting innovative residential heating systems: A discrete choice analysis for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1271-1283.
    8. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2016. "Switching from fossil fuel to renewables in residential heating systems: An empirical study of homeowners' decisions in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 95-105.
    9. Mahapatra, Krushna & Gustavsson, Leif, 2008. "An adopter-centric approach to analyze the diffusion patterns of innovative residential heating systems in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 577-590, February.
    10. Connor, Peter & Bürger, Veit & Beurskens, Luuk & Ericsson, Karin & Egger, Christiane, 2013. "Devising renewable heat policy: Overview of support options," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 3-16.
    11. Kircher, Kevin J. & Zhang, K. Max, 2021. "Heat purchase agreements could lower barriers to heat pump adoption," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    12. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "Motivational factors influencing the homeowners’ decisions between residential heating systems: An empirical analysis for Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 221-233.
    13. Achtnicht, Martin & Madlener, Reinhard, 2014. "Factors influencing German house owners' preferences on energy retrofits," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 254-263.
    14. Decker, Thomas & Menrad, Klaus, 2015. "House owners' perceptions and factors influencing their choice of specific heating systems in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 150-161.
    15. Friege, Jonas & Chappin, Emile, 2014. "Modelling decisions on energy-efficient renovations: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 196-208.
    16. Willis, Ken & Scarpa, Riccardo & Gilroy, Rose & Hamza, Neveen, 2011. "Renewable energy adoption in an ageing population: Heterogeneity in preferences for micro-generation technology adoption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 6021-6029, October.
    17. Hecher, Maria & Hatzl, Stefanie & Knoeri, Christof & Posch, Alfred, 2017. "The trigger matters: The decision-making process for heating systems in the residential building sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 288-306.
    18. Geir Skjevrak & Bertha Maya Sopha, 2012. "Wood-Pellet Heating in Norway: Early Adopters’ Satisfaction and Problems That Have Been Experienced," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-15, May.
    19. Wilhite, Harold & Nakagami, Hidetoshi & Masuda, Takashi & Yamaga, Yukiko & Haneda, Hiroshi, 1996. "A cross-cultural analysis of household energy use behaviour in Japan and Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(9), pages 795-803, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hecher, Maria & Hatzl, Stefanie & Knoeri, Christof & Posch, Alfred, 2017. "The trigger matters: The decision-making process for heating systems in the residential building sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 288-306.
    2. Li, Pei-Hao & Keppo, Ilkka & Strachan, Neil, 2018. "Incorporating homeowners' preferences of heating technologies in the UK TIMES model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 716-727.
    3. Ruokamo, Enni, 2016. "Household preferences of hybrid home heating systems – A choice experiment application," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 224-237.
    4. Karytsas, Spyridon & Theodoropoulou, Helen, 2014. "Public awareness and willingness to adopt ground source heat pumps for domestic heating and cooling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 49-57.
    5. Freyre, Alisa & Klinke, Sandra & Patel, Martin K., 2020. "Carbon tax and energy programs for buildings: Rivals or allies?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Karytsas, Spyridon & Polyzou, Olympia & Karytsas, Constantine, 2019. "Factors affecting willingness to adopt and willingness to pay for a residential hybrid system that provides heating/cooling and domestic hot water," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 591-603.
    7. Côté, Elizabeth & Pons-Seres de Brauwer, Cristian, 2023. "Preferences of homeowners for heat-pump leasing: Evidence from a choice experiment in France, Germany, and Switzerland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    8. Chen, Qiu, 2021. "District or distributed space heating in rural residential sector? Empirical evidence from a discrete choice experiment in South China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PA).
    9. Jingchao, Zhang & Kotani, Koji & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi, 2018. "Public acceptance of environmentally friendly heating in Beijing: A case of a low temperature air source heat pump," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 75-85.
    10. Selvakkumaran, Sujeetha & Ahlgren, Erik O., 2019. "Determining the factors of household energy transitions: A multi-domain study," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 54-75.
    11. Heiskanen, Eva & Matschoss, Kaisa, 2017. "Understanding the uneven diffusion of building-scale renewable energy systems: A review of household, local and country level factors in diverse European countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 580-591.
    12. Strazzera, Elisabetta & Meleddu, Daniela & Contu, Davide & Fornara, Ferdinando, 2024. "Willingness to pay for innovative heating/cooling systems: A comprehensive appraisal of drivers and barriers to adoption in Ireland and Italy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    13. Akhatova, A. & Derkenbaeva, E. & van Leeuwen, E. & Kranzl, L. & Halleck Vega, S. & Hofstede, G.J., 2024. "Who invests in energy retrofits? Mining Dutch homeowners’ data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    14. Curtis, John & McCoy, Daire & Aravena, Claudia, 2018. "Heating system upgrades: The role of knowledge, socio-demographics, building attributes and energy infrastructure," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 183-196.
    15. McCoy, Daire & Curtice, John, 2018. "Exploring the spatial and temporal determinants of gas central heating adoption," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86625, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. McCoy, Daire & Curtis, John, 2018. "Exploring the spatial and temporal determinants of gas central heating adoption," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 64-86.
    17. Ortega-Izquierdo, Margarita & Paredes-Salvador, Andrés & Montoya-Rasero, Carlos, 2019. "Analysis of the decision making factors for heating and cooling systems in Spanish households," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 175-185.
    18. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2015. "Beyond Technology Adoption: Homeowner Satisfaction with Newly Adopted Residential Heating Systems," FCN Working Papers 1/2015, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    19. Meles, Tensay Hadush & Ryan, Lisa & Mukherjee, Sanghamitra C., 2022. "Heterogeneity in preferences for renewable home heating systems among Irish households," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    20. Wilson, C. & Pettifor, H. & Chryssochoidis, G., 2018. "Quantitative modelling of why and how homeowners decide to renovate energy efficiently," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1333-1344.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:15:p:4625-:d:605189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.