An empirical analysis of county-level residential PV adoption in California

To understand long term PV deployment, it is important to explore the underlying mechanisms that drive PV market diffusion. This paper examines the relationships between several social and economic factors and residential PV market diffusion on a county level. The Bass diffusion model was used to estimate diffusion parameters for 46 counties in California. Regression analysis was then applied to find associations between these parameters and several socio-demographic, economic, and political variables in each county. Finally, a Generalized Bass Model was employed to explore the price effect on PV diffusion. We have found supporting evidence of the inverse relationship between attainment of higher education and the coefficient of imitation. We have clearly shown evidence for heterogeneity between counties in one or more of our observed dimensions, or unobserved and possibly confounding factors. Although not significant at the conventional 5% and 10% levels, our Generalized Bass Model nonetheless supports the presence of price-based fluctuations in adoption rates.