Discrete choice study data on financing electricity access in Africa. [Dataset]

Abstract

The discrete choice study aimed to investigate the preferences of household or retail investors for renewable energy investments. Specifically, it sought to address the following key objectives: (1) to determine the marginal willingness to pay for renewable energy investment attributes; (2) to determine where heterogeneity exists, if any, in preferences for attributes; and (3) to investigate the effect of demographic variables like age, education and income on the likelihood of investing. 250 paper-based questionnaires were administered, of which 201 were returned. From the results, it is evident that to attract household investment into renewable energy, the perceived risks investors attach to such investments must be addressed. The highest marginal willingness to pay associated with the track record of the developer attribute can be described as a “proxy” for the riskiness of the investment. Specifically, respondents were willing to pay the highest for a developer who had completed five similar projects in the past.

Citation

MENYEH, B. 2021. Discrete choice study data on financing electricity access in Africa. [Dataset]. Hosted on Mendeley Data [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17632/ytm63884d9.1

• Acceptance Date: Apr 6, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Apr 6, 2021
• Publication Date: Apr 6, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jul 29, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 29, 2022
• Publisher: Elsevier
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17632/ytm63884d9.1
• Keywords: Household investors; Choice experiment; Willingness-to-pay; Renewable energy investments; Energy access
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1721664
• Related Public URLs: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1712924
• Type of Data: CSV file.
• Collection Date: Oct 31, 2017
• Collection Method: The process of designing the discrete choice experiment was composed of two key stages. The first step, considered truly critical, is the identification of attributes and the assignment of levels. A combination of qualitative methods based on interviews, groups discussions, expert opinions or a literature review can be employed. The focus groups were conducted with household inestors in January 2017 in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Participants had to be gainfully employed and make at least $10 a day - a starting point for the global middle class. The overall questionnaire consisted of three parts: In the first part, respondents were asked to provide information about their investing style with options to depict experience with investing, risk tolerance and motive for investing. The second part was the main choice experiment whilst the third and final section collected personal information regarding gender, age, occupation, education and income. The complete questionnaire survey was pretested in August 2017 with a small sample (20 respondents) to measure clarity and cognitive burden. This led to some minor revisions before final survey administration in October 2017. A paper-based questionnaire was administered face-to-face in Accra as it has the highest percentage of households in the fourth- and fifth-income quintile who are most likely to meet the income requirement. A combination of recruitment methods was used including visiting business and educational institutions and setting up at key professional event centres like the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) that hosts many conferences from different industry groups annually. Potential survey participants were screened for income, and if they did not meet criteria, the questionnaire was not administered. Using this approach, only about 10% of persons approached failed the income screening. Altogether about 250 paper-based questionnaires were administered. Two hundred and one (201) questionnaires were obtained in all corresponding to an 80% response rate. No incentives were utilised for the survey. For many respondents, a description of the study and its aims were enough for subscription.