
NSF Org: |
CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation |
Recipient: |
|
Initial Amendment Date: | October 30, 2014 |
Latest Amendment Date: | October 30, 2014 |
Award Number: | 1463717 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Rob Stone
CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation ENG Directorate for Engineering |
Start Date: | September 1, 2014 |
End Date: | July 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $372,433.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $372,433.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
History of Investigator: |
|
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
450 JANE STANFORD WAY STANFORD CA US 94305-2004 (650)723-2300 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
Primary Place of Performance: |
3160 Porter Drive Palo Alto CA US 94304-1212 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
Parent UEI: |
|
NSF Program(s): | ESD-Eng & Systems Design |
Primary Program Source: |
|
Program Reference Code(s): |
|
Program Element Code(s): |
|
Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
Solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels convert energy from the sun into electricity. They emit zero pollutants during electricity generation and thus decrease particulate and greenhouse gas emissions when they replace electricity from coal-fired power plants. Additionally, PV-panel use increases U.S. energy independence and reliability due to decentralized electricity production, and decreases the burden on overstressed and aging coal-fired power plants. While PV technology is increasingly efficient and affordable, it currently accounts for only 1.13 percent of U.S. electricity generation. This award uses a novel combination of mathematical models and consumer survey research to discover design insights and policy measures that will increase adoption of PVs by U.S. households. The research is interdisciplinary, drawing from engineering design, solar technology research, marketing, economics, public policy, psychology, and applied mathematics.
The objective of this research is to investigate and improve U.S. residential PV panel adoption by creating an innovative model of dynamic and interrelated decisions made by manufacturers, policymakers, installers, and consumers. The model will include complex decisions for both competing providers (installers) and consumers (homeowners) represented using a game-theoretic approach. Consumer and installer responses to market conditions will be estimated using online survey analysis, providing preference/decision models from real-world data. Consumer preferences will be modeled as responsive to policy campaigns. For example, education and advertising will influence whether consumers will buy PV panels or which panels they will buy. This is a significant improvement over similar modeling approaches, which assume stagnant consumer preferences. Combining this approach with an innovative funnel decision model for consumer purchases will allow for the exploration of the impact of non-financial policy campaigns, such as educational campaigns. Existing engineering and cost models of PV panels act as the backbone for manufacturer pricing and design decisions. Policy models will be built from existing policy measures as well as new options based on results of model simulations and hypothesis testing. A web-based teaching model of this large system of interrelated stakeholders and decisions will help students to understand their engineering education and future career as part of a larger system that can benefit society, for example, by decreasing pollution and increasing U.S. energy independence.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
Note:
When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external
site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a
charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from
this site.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The objective of this research was to investigate and improve U.S. residential solar panel adoption by creating a novel model of dynamic and interrelated manufacturer, policymaker, installer, and consumer decisions. One activity accomplished under this grant was the interviewing and surveying of both installers and homeowners to understand the "pain points" of the adoption and installation process. In order to transfer the information learned from these interactions to a mathematical model, an important intermediate step was undertaken and documented as a new design method, called a Linked Journey Map. This allowed the research team to identify the key parts of the homeowner/installer interaction process and transfer them to the agent based model (ABM). In the ABM, each member of the solar panel installation process (manufacturers, installers, homeowners) are represented by individual "agents" that can make their own decisions and interact with each other based on mathematical rules. These rules were extracted from data, interviews, and a web-based survey of people that have and do not have solar panels installed on their homes. One important finding of the research is that it makes sense for solar panel manufacturers to strive to increase panel efficiency, the amount of energy produced per panel per cost, rather than reliability, both economically and also based on qualitative results of homeowner interviews and surveying. Cost and efficiency both factor heavily into homeowner decisions to purchase panels, because they relate to the payback period (when the investment in solar energy begins to be positive rather than negative vs. paying for regular electricity); while reliability is covered by the panel warranty, which is fairly standard across the industry. However, installers should have interest in reliability, as they are the ones that need to service, repair, and replace panels. These activities increase the cost of solar energy in the long run. There is not much information available on panel reliability, as testing is conducted by the manufacturers themselves and not cross-checked. Better reliability testing, perhaps organized by governments, could improve the adoption of new technologies in the solar panel industry because installers could trust they would not drive up their costs of business with warranty work. Installers drive the adoption of new technology, not homeowners, so addressing their needs is key to driving technological advancements in solar energy.
Last Modified: 07/23/2019
Modified by: Erin Macdonald
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.