When the lights go out: Californians’ experience with wildfire-related public safety power shutoffs increases intention to adopt solar and storage

Abstract As wildfire risk in the western U.S. grows due to climate change, the frequency and duration of public safety power shutoffs (PSPSs) are expected to increase. Surveying California residents (n = 804), we identify four respondent groupings based on PSPS experience and concern about future power outages. We find that those with higher levels of experience/concern express higher levels of intention to adopt solar and/or storage, even after controlling for factors such as socio-demographics, climate change concern, and existing adoption of smart technology within the home. Such findings have implications for areas where residents have experienced and/or are concerned about future power outages, suggesting that motivations for solar and storage adoption can go beyond financial considerations and environmental attitudes, and may include a desire to lessen impacts from power disruptions. In this Perspective, we argue that experience with and concern about extreme events, especially those that have the potential to result in power disruptions, should be incorporated into research about residential solar and storage adoption, and will likely become more important as extreme weather, climate change, and other aspects of an evolving electricity grid impact future power system reliability.