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Americans Want Choices in Renewable Energy Supply
Green Technology Featured Articles
March 11, 2014

Americans Want Choices in Renewable Energy Supply

By Michelle Nicolson
TMCnet Contributing Writer

A new survey indicates that Americans want a choice of electricity supply, and the vast majority of households support renewable energy.


With the nation still feeling its way toward implementing renewable energy sources, consumers indicated they are ready for the change ahead, with 88 percent of homeowners supporting renewable energy and 69 percent wanting more choices in their energy source, according to “U.S. Homeowners on Clean Energy (News - Alert): A National Survey,” produced by Zogby Analytics, a national polling firm.

In particular, consumers seem to be interested in solar power—still a nascent technology in the United States. A surprising 62 percent of Americans said they would be interested in solar power for their own homes, which is an impressive majority given there’s only 500,000 solar installations out of 75 million owner-occupied homes in this country.

The two biggest reasons for considering solar are zero up-front costs and ongoing cost savings. While consumers show growing interest in solar power, some local utilities have resisted it by implementing fees and taxes as a way of suppressing solar deployment. However, the survey found three out of four poll respondents voiced opposition to these types of efforts, saying that utilities should not be allowed to enforce restrictions on on-site energy systems.

“Other surveys have looked at general green-consumer activity, but ours is among the first to focus on U.S. homeowners—a group that makes the majority of clean-energy residential purchases,” said Ron Pernick, managing director of clean-energy benchmarking service provider Clean Edge, which commissioned the survey along with SolarCity (News - Alert), a solar technology developer. “The shift to clean-energy solutions was deep and wide across all demographics. Indeed, consumers not only want choice, but also want to protect their right to install their own distributed energy and storage systems.”

Energy use is closely tied to consumer purchasing decisions, with about 70 percent of all homeowners considering or investigating the sustainability of big-ticket items when making purchasing decisions. The survey found more than half are more likely to take sustainability considerations into account today than they were three years ago.

Interest in energy-saving products ran the gamut among respondents, with the most popular planned clean-energy purchases identified as LED light bulbs, smart thermostats, double- or triple-pane windows, hybrid cars and Energy-Star rated hot water heaters.

More than 1,400 U.S. homeowners participated in the survey. Respondents were randomly selected to answer questions about renewables, energy efficiency, clean transportation, energy storage, and related topics. All interviews were completed in January 2014. The report is available for download at www.solarcity.com/insideenergy and www.cleanedge.com/reports.




Edited by Cassandra Tucker


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