Developing interventions for the adoption of solar home systems in rural areas of Vhembe District, South Africa
Energy poverty threatens humanity worldwide but is much more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa. Current energy generation trajectories are unsustainable because of their overreliance on burning fossils. Adopting renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaics is one of the viable and sustainable ways of confronting this scourge and its associated challenges. Across the globe, rooftop solar home systems (SHS) have been used to electrify rural and isolated households. However, in South Africa, the uptake of the SHS has been low. Adopting a rooftop SHS hinges on the household's behaviour to accept or reject the technology in their homes. A clear understanding of household behavioural intention has the potential to unlock the development of sustainable and effective interventions for adopting SHS among rural communities. A behavioural approach underpinned by the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour was followed first to understand the behavioural beliefs and, later, identify behavioural determinations and predictors shaping SHS adoption intention among the selected villages of Vhembe District Municipality. Methodologically, an explorative mixed approach employing a sequential design comprising two distinct data collection and analysis stages. During the first data collection phase, 30 households were purposively sampled across the three selected villages, with 310 households randomly selected during the second phase of the cross-sectional survey. The first phase mainly solicited underlying beliefs shaping SHS adoption intention, while the survey unearthed the determinants and predictors of the technology among rural communities. Atlas ti version 9 was used to analyse qualitative data through thematic networks and coding of the primary documents. Results obtained during the first phase were used to formulate a Likert-type scale questionnaire for the second phase data collection phase, which covered 310 households randomly selected across the same three villages. IBM SPSS Statistics and IBM SPSS Amos version 27 were used for data analysis using data reduction techniques such as exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and hypothesis testing statistical techniques. Results revealed that grid electricity, firewood, paraffin, solar photovoltaics (PV) and candles are the dominant energy sources in the district. In addition, household illumination, water heating, entertainment, cooking and air conditioning emerged as the primary energy household uses. Also, results revealed that households have different perceptions towards rooftop SHS. More than half of households believed that rooftop SHS does not work well during cloudy and rainy climatic conditions. Additionally, lack of trust, unaffordability of the technology, inadequate technical knowledge, unavailability of technicians, reliability and the quality of both the power produced and the solar equipment were some of the prevalent beliefs held by the rural households. Data reduction techniques were performed on the survey data and produced a five-factor solution with 12 main items. The emergent factors were intention, perceived behaviour control, subjective norm, attitude and trust, all with an acceptable Cronbach alpha value above 0.7. Since the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour underpinned the study, Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed to test if the measurement structure of the observed variables fits the hypothesized model. Results revealed that the measurement structure of observed variables passed reliability and validity tests, as measured with Cronbach alpha, Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and Composite Reliability (CR). Model fit statistics were acceptable (X²/df=2.7, CFI=0.970, SRMR=0.033, TLI=0.955) as Hair et al. (1998) recommended. Attitude and trust positively influence the intention of adopting a SHS among the rural households of Vhembe District Municipality. Succinctly, rooftop SHS in the district is determined by three factors, i.e., social, technical and policy determinants. The interplay of these determinants with the five behavioural predictors (intention, subjective norm, attitude, trust and perceived behaviour control) shapes the overall decision to adopt a SHS at the household level. Based on this, a set of interventions anchored on three key determinants is proposed. Thus, it is recommended that policy, social and technical factors be ensured at the praxis and policy levels for the successful adoption of SHS among rural communities. Since the proposed interventions were developed through participatory methods, the proposed interventions resonate with the local and contextual realities of the rural households in the district.
Behaviours, Belief, Households, Intentions, Rooftop Solar Home Systems
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