Technology Acceptance as Part of the Energy Performance Gap in Energy-Efficient Retrofitted Dwellings

This paper separates technological from human capabilities with regard to the operating of advanced heating systems. Our study shows that attitudes towards using such systems are equally influenced by a system's ease of use and its related thermal comfort as perceived by the user. However, the user does not perceive either of these influences directly; they are both mediated through the latent construct “perceived usefulness”. Our results reveal that in order to maximize the technology acceptance of advanced heating systems, the focus of interventions needs to be a twofold one. It is not only perceived thermal comfort – in its technological capacity of a delivered energy service – which is relevant; an easy-to-use system is equally important. The underlying psychological theory of this paper is that of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Using an adapted version of the technology acceptance model (TAM) – the energy TAM (eTAM) – we draw on questionnaire data from a field experiment conducted in Germany. The statistical inference is based on a partial least squares patch modeling (PLS-PM) approach.