Diffusion of renewable energy technologies (RET) research: past, present and future

Many RET projects fail to achieve continuity, replication, commercialization and sustainable markets even when pilot projects demonstrate high potential and great interest from the potential users. Many RET diffusion studies try to explain the dynamics of the diffusion process and provide answers as to why successful demonstration and high consumer interest do not metamorphose into viable and sustainable RET commercialization. A tendency to focus on specific technologies in precise geographical locations creates a wide variation in RET diffusion studies (Nagamatsu et al, 2006). However, deeper analysis of the variations reveals many common issues in methodology, findings, conclusions and recommendations that can be generalised to RET diffusion. By reviewing published papers on diffusion of RET published between before 2013, this paper attempts to identify general patterns in RET diffusion studies, which can be used worldwide in the process of increasing the uptake of renewable energy technologies by trying to map out in a quite comprehensive manner what has been done and studied in this field over the last two decades in a more general fashion.