Developing interventions for the adoption of solar home systems in rural areas of Vhembe District, South Africa
type: CreativeWork
description: 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 …
abstract: 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 …
author: Chidembo, Ranganai
language: en
keywords: Behaviours, Belief, Households, Intentions, Rooftop Solar Home Systems
date published: 2024-05-17
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:57:31Z
provider: University of Venda
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Venda