Economic value and acceptability of advanced solar power systems for multi-unit residential buildings: The case of South Korea

Residential solar power systems offer several advantages to the energy system owing to their proximity to the demand area. To this end, promotion policies have focused on providing financial incentives for installation. However, as residential solar power systems increasingly diffuse, this approach entails considerable costs and thus, is unsustainable in the long term. This study identified the key attributes of advanced residential solar power systems, including not only installation cost but also aesthetics (installation type and panel transparency), flexible power usage (ESS provision), and generation efficiency. This study extends the existing literature by investigating installation types that can be applied to multi-unit residential buildings (balcony and window installations). Using the choice experiment approach to Korean consumers, this study analyzed consumer preferences and the economic value of identified key attributes. The results show that the economic value of an appropriate installation type and transparent solar panel technology was substantial, compared to the economic value of improving generation efficiency. Moreover, according to the results of simulation analyses on consumer acceptance and overall energy potential of residential solar power systems, the trade-off between generation efficiency and other factors must be carefully considered, although aesthetic factors are more important than generation efficiency for improving consumer acceptance.