Psychological pathways from energy poverty perception to clean energy adoption intention

Purpose: This study investigates how feelings of energy poverty affect Chinese residents’ plans related to the adoption of clean energy by using the theory of planned behavior and conservation of resources theory. It considers how environmental concern and perceived behavioral control act as mediators for this relationship. Methodology: Data was obtained from the Chinese General Social Survey of 2021 in collaboration with the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) environmental module. A total of 2,187 adult participants made up the entire sample. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Additionally, Bootstrap mediation analysis was performed with 5,000 resamples. Findings: Energy poverty perception had a significant negative direct influence on the adoption intention of clean energy (β = −0.14, P < 0.01). Environmental concern and perceived behavioral control both acted as significant partial mediators for the effect. The indirect effect via environmental concern was larger in magnitude (−0.091, 30.8% of total effect) compared to the indirect effect of perceived behavioral control (−0.064, 21.7%). The total indirect effect (52.5%) exceeded the direct effect (47.5%). Conclusion: Energy poverty perception indirectly hinders the adoption intention of clean energy by reducing environmental prioritization and self-efficacy perceptions. The affective path was shown to have a relatively more significant effect. Practical Implications: Policy interventions should cover the alleviation of energy poverty while also linking the benefits of clean energy in terms of health and economic gains to the shortage of resources.