Influence mechanism of subsidy policy on household photovoltaic purchase intention under an urban-rural divide in China

Highlights: • Large primary survey data on 800 urban and rural households in China. • We explored the micro influence mechanism of policy based on psychological distance and risk tolerance. • Urban-Rural divide and local policy influence the effectiveness of home PV policy. • Subsidy policies have more effects on rural residents. Due to their clean and sustainable characteristics, household photovoltaic (PV) products have become an important means to deal with the energy crisis and develop a low-carbon society. Based on a large sample survey of 800 households in 30 Chinese provinces and municipalities, this paper explores the mechanism by which the household PV subsidy policy influences consumers' purchase intentions in the context of China's urban-rural divide, with psychological distance and risk tolerance as the mediating and moderating variables, respectively. The results show that psychological distance mediates the influence of the subsidy policy on purchase intentions, and risk tolerance has a significant moderating role. Furthermore, analysis of the urban-rural divide and local supporting policies shows that rural residents pay relatively greater attention to the subsidy benefits of central and local policies, and although their installation conditions offer inherent advantages, the low income level, low degree of risk tolerance, and high price sensitivity in the rural market has limited effective diffusion of household PV products. In contrast, urban residents are relatively closely aware of the policy's publicity, but they have lower purchase intentions due to limitation of the installation conditions.