Household wealth of tenants promotes their solar panel access

Abstract What is the impact of wealth constraints on solar-panel access when considering property rights constraints for residential tenants? Prior literature has not addressed the intersection of these important constraints. Using multiple methods with data from large Australian household surveys covering 2015–2018, this paper combines analysis of these two constraints by investigating the influence of wealth on solar-panel access for residential tenants, as opposed to homeowners. A strong wealth effect is observed, even though tenants are not directly responsible for solar-panel adoption in most cases. For tenants with above-median wealth, solar-panel access was higher by 1.4 percentage points, which was around half of the mean solar-panel access for Australian tenants. The economic rationale for this result is that tenants with higher household wealth can afford rental housing with additional attributes, such as solar panels. Focusing on low-wealth tenants would help improve access to solar panels in many countries.