What Americans think about renewables, and why it matters for the energy transition

Renewable energy technologies have the extraordinary ability to reduce pollution and mitigate climate change while also creating jobs and lowering energy costs. In the past decade, dramatic increases in efficiency and reductions in cost have unleashed a flood of funding and development.

But recently, many projects have become mired in obstacles such as red tape in local governments and backlash from local groups expressing a "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) sentiment. Further, the focus on renewables in the 2020 U.S. presidential campaigns set the issue on a path toward increasing partisan controversy.

Although the technological and economic tailwinds make a massive energy transition seem inevitable, many social, psychological, and political factors have now emerged as primary obstacles that need to be navigated. Here, we summarize the best available evidence on three key points: current policy support and the growing political divide on renewable energy; the underlying reasons why people support renewables; and how much people are willing to pay for electricity from renewable sources.

Strong overall support, despite a growing political divide

In 2018, XandY's co-founders collaborated on research that found strong bipartisan support for renewable energy. That survey found that 85% of U.S. voters supported requiring electric utilities to run on 100% renewable energy by 2050. This included 83% of moderate Republicans and 64% of conservative Republicans. Nearly all Democratic voters (95%) supported the proposal.

Since then, overall public support has dropped as political division has grown. A Pew Research Center study noted this polarization in 2021 (Figure 1), but still found strong majority support in both parties for the general idea of "more solar" and "more wind."

Polarization has grown the most on policies that propose ambitious goals or strict requirements. For example, a 2023 poll from Yale and George Mason found that 96% of liberal Democrats still support a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050, compared with only 21% of conservative Republicans. This is a dramatic shift from just five years earlier, when 64% of conservative Republicans supported it. The growing opposition to renewables is driven almost exclusively by the most conservative subset of the Republican party. In fact, the Yale and George Mason data show a substantial divide within Republicans, between conservatives and moderates.

This dramatic increase in polarization is likely a partial effect of the focus on renewable energy in the 2020 Biden presidential campaign. When any issue becomes a fixture of a political platform, it activates tribal mindsets and sparks opposition by default among members of the opposing party.

The Inflation Reduction Act may further exacerbate this polarization. Although the size of the effect remains to be seen, the IRA is more politically polarizing than the general topic of renewable energy. If the two are consistently linked in the public mind, the IRA could pull opinion on renewables along with it.

Americans differ in the reasons why they support renewables

In 2020, XandY's co-founders collaborated on a scientific study showing that people differ a lot in the main reasons they support renewables. Republicans tended to say the most important reasons to transition were to "reduce energy costs" and to "get energy from sources that never run out." Democrats tended to rank "reduce global warming" as a more important reason.

Interestingly, both parties agreed on the high importance of one reason: reducing pollution. Although partisans have different motives and priorities underlying their support, the benefits of renewables for clean air and clean water have strong universal appeal.

For companies and organizations trying to build support and catalyze action on renewables, it is imperative to develop communication strategies that align with the unique motives of their target audience. Our experimental work on message framing describes these strategies and the evidence for their effectiveness.

Willingness to pay more for renewables

A practical question we often get asked is "Are people willing to pay more to get electricity from renewables? And if so, how much more?" The answers can guide the strategy of industry stakeholders and policymakers.

A 2018 national survey we co-authored found that the national average willingness to pay (WTP) for renewable energy was about $30 more per month. However, this average is heavily influenced by high outliers, because the most common response, given by 47% of U.S. adults, was "$0 more."

A similar survey in 2022 found that 55% of California residents said they were "not willing" to pay more for renewable energy, while 44% said they were "willing." Surprisingly, an analysis led by XandY's co-founders showed little variation in WTP across income levels. The greatest variation is found between segments defined by education and political views.

The most comprehensive study on this topic combined the average WTP for renewable energy across several U.S. studies conducted from 1996 to 2011. The average in that period was $11.12 extra per month. WTP has been increasing in the decade since, so it is not surprising that a more recent national average is substantially higher, like the $30 found in the 2018 study.

But would people actually pay more? People tend to report WTP amounts that are higher than their real-world purchasing behavior, a pattern called "hypothetical bias." So when predicting real purchasing behavior, it is often more accurate to discount stated WTP by 30 to 40%, depending on the context.

From all this, two takeaways form the current best interpretation of the data. First, about half of Americans say they would pay more for renewable energy and about half say they would not. Second, when factoring in the $0 responses and the effect of hypothetical bias, the amount people would pay to get their electricity from renewables currently hovers around an average of $20 extra per month, though this may vary somewhat by region and demographics.

So what

Technological and economic tailwinds have been driving the energy transition, but continued progress requires careful navigation of social, psychological, and political barriers. The growing politicization of renewables creates a risk of public opposition. That risk should be mitigated through communication strategies that de-politicize the issue and focus instead on shared priorities and values. Public support for renewables is strongly influenced by the cost of electricity for ratepayers. Leveraging the persuasive force of cost reductions, and understanding the limits of tolerance for cost increases, are key to the success of efforts by industry and government.