Reflections on solar energy adoption research: a semi-systematic review
International Journal of Energy Sector Management
ISSN: 1750-6220
Article publication date: 3 May 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Research on solar energy adoption offers a multidimensional scope and warrants exploration from multiple perspectives, including political, economic, management, behavioral, policy and innovation aspects. The aim of this paper is to comprehensively consolidate major research findings on the premise of solar energy adoption and to disclose gaps in the existing literature.
Design/methodology/approach
A bibliometric analysis of the vast literature is conducted on 1,009 meticulously shortlisted articles following the semi-systematic literature review methodology. A text analytics tool named BibExcel is used for synthesizing the literature, and the results are visualized using Gephi, Pajek and a spreadsheet application.
Findings
This paper reports the evolution of research in the selected domain. It is noted that research in this domain was primarily concentrated on four broad themes, namely, peer effects and spatial patterns, public perceptions, policies and economics and technological evolution. The analysis further reveals the merging of two of these themes as a result of transdisciplinary research and also projects future research trends emphasizing political interventions in technological evolution and diffusion.
Originality/value
Research trends and future research scope are identified and discussed in detail. The information revealed from the analysis, along with the research implications, will assist policymakers in noting the flaws in the current doctrines and practices, entrepreneurs in understanding potential enablers and barriers influencing solar energy adoption and budding scholars in comprehending the current research status and framing promising research objectives to close the existing research gaps.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Editor, Associate Editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions for enriching the quality of the paper. They also thank PGDM students of XIME Kochi from the Operations Management specialization for assisting in retrieving relevant data from the WoS platform.
Declarations.
Funding: No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Data availability: Data will be made available on request.
Citation
C.R., V. and John, J. (2024), "Reflections on solar energy adoption research: a semi-systematic review", International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJESM-01-2024-0028
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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