The dynamics of renewable energy diffusion considering adoption delay

Renewable energy diffusion is one of the most effective tools for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Few studies have analyzed the dynamics of the underlying relationships between the determinants of renewable energy diffusion from a systematic viewpoint. In this study, we develop a novel interactive model to simulate these dynamics using delay differential equations. We discuss different scenarios of diffusion and test the parameters for the optimal scenarios. The results indicate that the determinants' impact changes when people's preferences change through reducing cost and raising environmental awareness. The adoption delay greatly impacts the diffusion process and should not exceed a certain threshold, furthermore, adoption delay is highly related to the adoption rate that results from financial support and energy taxation. The stable continuous adoption should have a high average rate that requires a suitable combination of financial support and taxation and a stable market supply of renewable energy technologies. Governments should control advertising about renewable energy technologies, facilitate technical information exchange to speed up the interaction adoption rate, and raise environmental awareness.(c) 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.