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Title: Surveying the Solar Power Gap: Assessing the Spatial Distribution of Emerging Photovoltaic Solar Adoption in the State of Georgia, U.S.A.

Journal Article · · Sustainability (Basel)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/su10114117· OSTI ID:1493312
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States)
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Despite a global push in the development and implementation of widespread alternative energy use, significant disparities exist across given nation-states. These disparities reflect both technical and economic factors, as well as the social, political, and ecological gaps between how communities see energy development and national/global policy goals. Known as the “local-national gap”, many nations struggle with fostering meaningful conversations about the role of alternative energy technologies within communities. Mitigation of this problem first requires understanding the distribution of existing alternative energy technologies at the local level of policymaking. To address the limitation of existing adoption trend analysis at the scale of local governance (e.g., county governments), this paper demonstrates a novel method for contextualizing solar technology adoption by using the State of Georgia in the United States as an exemplar. Leveraging existing work on the Gini Coefficient as a metric for measuring energy inequity, we argue these tools can be applied to analyze where gaps exist in ongoing solar adoption trends. As we demonstrate, communities that adopt solar tend to be concentrated in a few counties, indicating existing conversations are limited to a circumscribed set of social networks. This information and the model we demonstrate can enable focused qualitative analyses of existing solar trends, not only among high-adoption areas but within communities where little to no adoption has occurred.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
EE0007664
OSTI ID:
1493312
Journal Information:
Sustainability (Basel), Vol. 10, Issue 11; ISSN 2071-1050
Publisher:
MDPICopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 9 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Linked Research (1)

Figures / Tables (17)

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14 SOLAR ENERGY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
technology adoption
Lorenz curves
Gini coefficient
local-national gap
Georgia
NIMBY
solar energy
community development
soft cost reduction