Overcoming barriers to microgeneration in new homes: coevolutionary analysis and attitudes to different deployment models

This research addresses the drivers and barriers for the inclusion of microgeneration in new homes in the UK, and the role of different technology deployment models in overcoming barriers. An interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach is used, drawing on insight from social sciences, economics, innovations theory and psychology to characterise the role of deployment models and assess householder attitudes. A coevolutionary analysis of drivers and barriers provides evidence that many of the social, economic, technical and institutional issues involved with incorporating microgeneration in new homes are substantially different from those involved with retrofitting the technologies, demonstrating the importance of considering new build domestic microgeneration as an issue in its own right, rather than subsuming it into analyses of retrofitting. The use of Foxon’s coevolutionary framework to investigate the diffusion of specific technologies in a certain sector is also demonstrated. A literature synthesis brings together previously disparate strands of research to draw new insights into the role of different deployment models in overcoming barriers. It is found that the ESCO model is likely to have a significant role to play in facilitating the uptake of microgeneration in new homes, but that householder attitudes towards ESCOs may be mixed. An existing theory that more innovative householders will prefer private ownership of microgeneration to ESCOs (and vice versa), is tested quantitatively. No relationship between innovativeness and choice of deployment model is found in the present work. However, it is shown that different householders do prefer different models, with younger age, higher levels of education and urban living found to correlate with a preference for the ESCO model. An analysis of occupancy trends in the UK reveals that in the majority of cases, householders’ choices of deployment model are likely to align with that which is most economically and technically suitable for their chosen development.