Profiling End User of Renewable Energy Sources among Residential Consumers in Poland

Abstract

This paper investigates the profile of end user of renewable energy sources (RES) among Polish households. Users differ in their sex, age, economic status, knowledge about energy, their attitudes toward RES and pro-ecological behavior therefore our focus was on exploring segmentation criteria. The main determinants of willingness to install small-scale RES among households were assumed as segmentation criteria. The research identified the correlation between the households’ willingness to install RES and (1) socio-economic and energy awareness variables, (2) pro-ecological and pro-effectiveness behaviors variables. The main determinants of RES adoption were explored using empirical analysis with data collected by the survey among 960 households in Lower Silesia, a southwest region in Poland in November and December of 2015. The importance of the variables was verified by a logit model. The discovery of the user profile is vital to obtain knowledge about users of small-scale generators to provide them personalized offer. The finding from this study could be valuable for local authority’s energy utilities that are involved for increasing the adoption rate of RES among households and for (e.g., services companies installing RES) that are interested in increasing number of RES installations.