Title of Project

Earn From the Sun

Research question

Why is there less Finnish Willingness To Accept solar energy?

Student researcher names

Akshita Sharma, Hanzhi Zhang

Project proposal summary

Our project is based on the UN's 17 sustainability goals of Affordable and Clean energy that aim to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. Solar energy is certainly an inexhaustible form of natural occurring resource. The aggregate yearly energy used by humans in 1 year is 4.6 x 10^20 J. This energy is contributed by the sun in 1 hour. So at least to say that the energy from the Sun can single-handedly suffice the needs of humans. Solar energy has an encouraging future because of the technological amelioration in this particular field, also because of its environment-friendly nature. This gave rise to the Solar photovoltaic systems becoming increasingly popular among consumers and households as a means to increase the share of renewable energy and reduce electricity imports. Installing solar PV capacity on homes can transform residents from mere consumers of electricity to prosumers, producing some of their electricity consumption and potentially selling surplus electricity to the grid. We talk about Finland in this project specifically which has the standard diurnal irradiation in Finland is faintly over 900 kWh per square meter, putting the country roughly commensurate with Germany and Belgium, which are generally thought as much better locations for producing solar power.

Our project analyses the role of the Willingness to Accept Factor playing a major role in this. Finland is one of the ideal countries where solar energies can persist but concerning other European countries, the adoption of solar PV systems in Finland is at a diminished and lower level than seen in other EU countries. In 2010 the usage of the total grid-connected solar power/energy causation was merely 4 GWh in the country but it started doubling to 8 GWh in four years(2014) the manufacturing of solar energy has expanded since then, but still elucidates for less than 0.05 percent of total electricity production in Finland and hence we ask the question why? By using the qualitative method of an interview we will conduct our studies.

Project Objectives and Contribution to Scholarship

This research analyzes the WTA (willingness to accept) factor widely while also looking into the patterns ranging from metropolitan cities to rural ones. This contributes to the research that will be conducted in the future by already learning about the acceptance factor of the residents in Finland. By getting the knowledge about this it can be easier for future scholars to include the reason and the solution to why there is less acceptance.

Connection of Research Proposal to Sustainability

According to the United Nations website, a Lack of access to energy supplies and transformation systems is a constraint to human and economic development. The environment provides a series of renewable and non-renewable energy sources i.e. solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biofuels, natural gas, coal, petroleum, and uranium. 3 billion people rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating. Energy is the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for around 60 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Since 1990, global emissions of CO2 have increased by more than 46 percent. Energy efficiency and increased use of renewables contribute to climate change mitigation and disaster risk reduction. Maintaining and protecting ecosystems allow using and further development of hydropower sources of electricity and bioenergy.

Literature Review

Less generation of Solar Energy can be seen because of less public acceptance. In fact, few studies demonstrate unconditional willingness which certified that some consumers would acquire solar energy even though the Finnish policies are not adequate. Social acceptance of solar energy among Finnish citizens shall alter from urban metropolitan areas to rural districts, from places with more or less cold, etc. We’ve also established that examining the acceptance of solar energy indicates public readiness to acquire solar energy and its likelihood, which can be subjective based on individual predilection. The research in the future may incorporate a larger sample that the ones conducted in this research to resemble the states of WTA and the interconnected patterns of social acceptance to create more intricate information which would be beneficial. Demonstrably, this research further distinguished some sort of behaviour gap in the way of solar energy acceptance among Finnish citizens. This also encourages surveillance in the conduction of future research.

References

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