Diffusion of innovation model of consumer behaviour e Ideas to accelerate adoption of renewable energy sources by consumer communities in India Swaminathan Mani * , Tarun Dhingra University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun, India article info Article history: Received 27 April 2011 Accepted 26 July 2011 Available online 23 August 2011 Keywords: Renewable energy India Adoption of renewable energy sources Accelerate adoption Diffusion of innovation of renewable energy sources Case examples of mobile phones adoption in India Case examples of Internet penetration in India abstract Renewable Energy (RE) sources form a minuscule portion of India’s overall Energy consumption today. India continues to rely on fast depleting fossil fuel and expensive Oil imports to satisfy the energy demands of the economy. But this is hardly sustainable and India has to quickly get RE sources to play a major role in servicing the energy needs of its population. Despite the best efforts the adoption of RE sources by consumer communities in India is patchy. This article will focus on what needs to be done to create a pull from the market for RE sources, by looking at Consumer Behaviour literature available in the area of Diffusion of Innovation [1]. Demand for RE sources from consumer communities must reach a tipping point [4] quickly; for the sector to take-off on its own and become a self-sustaining business. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Renewable Energy (RE) sources contribute hardly 8% (excluding large hydro projects) of the total power generated in India. Out of this 8%, one or two states in the country contribute majority of power generated through RE (Wind þ Solar) sources. The rest of the country put together accounts for less than 5% of clean power [9,10]. If India has to meet its ambitious growth plans, the energy availability of the country needs to grow at a much faster pace that it is today. This growth cannot be met by fossil fuels alone. At some point the contribution of Renewable energy sources must form a substantial portion of the overall Energy bucket. The reasons are well known and well documented e Environmental concerns, depleting fossil fuel resources, excessive dependency on Oil imports etc. e that it hardly merits repetition. However, adoption of Renewable energy has really not caught on among the consumer communities in India. Unless a substantial number of citizens adopts RE sources, the costs of producing energy from RE sources will continue to remain high and thereby creating a downward spiral of poor patronage among the public for RE adoption for its daily use. There are several papers available on the incentives offered by the Government to promote the generation of power from RE sources e which creates a ‘push’ in the marketplace for RE sources. But the ‘push’ factor alone is insufficient for rapidly scaling up the adoption of RE sources. We need to look at different models for creating a ‘pull’ factor as well, from the consumer communities. This article will explore whether some of the available manage- ment literature around consumer behaviour can be leveraged to identify the pull strategies. Of course, the pace of adoption varies for each product category and cannot be extrapolated to RE sources as it is; but the concepts can be used as a guide to debate strategies that could be adopted by policy makers and practitioners to accelerate adoption of clean energy sources. This article will not discuss the merits of one RE sources over the other from a technical stand-point but will discuss the management side of demand creation for sustainable energy source. The key questions that need to explored are 1. What are the lessons to be learnt by Renewable Energy producers in India from the diffusion of Mobile communication adoption by Indian customers e from less than 25,000 users in 1998 to 800 Million users in 2010 [7]? When they were intro- duced mobile communications were prohibitively expensive. e Similar to the situation now faced by Renewable Energy producers. How did the mobile communication companies overcome the initial handicap and successfully grow their customer base 32,000 times during the 12 year period [7,8]. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 9989047746. E-mail address: swaminathanmani@yahoo.com (S. Mani). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene 0960-1481/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2011.07.036 Renewable Energy 39 (2012) 162e165