ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 57

4 No. Bedrooms

$1,425,500 Sold Price

10/08/08 Sale Date

HOUSE Property Type

VIC State

3124 Postcode

Camberwell Suburb

5289591 Record ID

Table 3 Sample of REIV data

Comments
Situated on a generous allotment this home provides a great opportunity
for you to live in one of Melbourne’s most desirable suburbs. Comprising:
Two living areas with hardwood floors- Period style kitchen with gas
cooking facilities, recently installed solar panels, spacious rear yard for
the family and off street parking. Located a comfortable stroll to popular
Bourke Road retail precinct and rail. First time offered for sale for many
years. This is a home to excite the most discerning buyer.

(Source: Authors)

Results And Discussion
Real estate agent advertisements were examined for the frequency of words and phrases used
to inform the reader of existing solar technologies. Grammatical forms were examined and are
explained in Table 4.
Table 4 Flag category used
Flag

Explanation

flag_solar1_word

Words and phrases that attempt to highlight the house comprising installed and functioning solar
power source. For example; solar power, solar energy, solar panel(s).

(Source: Authors)
These categories were designed to capture the possible range of descriptions that could be used
when describing solar technologies within the house and were guided by contemporary research.

Correlations
As the aim is to consider the influence of demographic profiles on ‘solar’ words in advertising,
bivariate correlations between the keyword and demographic variables were undertaken. All variables exhibited weak form correlations but were nonetheless significant in many cases. Solar
words appeared negatively correlated for regions where the residents had undertaken higher education [r=-0.009, n=91,331, p=0.001]. This contradicts previous research findings (Eves and Kipps
2010; Zhang 2010) that more educated people are more likely to adopt energy efficient technologies and real estate agents appear to be marketing to this disposition. Although weak, this finding could be explained by the proposition that government subsidies are available to all people
and attraction to energy bills is likely to be taken up irrespective of educational background. Correlation with household size is also weak but significant [r=0.016, n=91,331, p= 0.001]. This finding
suggests that larger households are seeking ways of reducing ongoing energy bills. In itself this
would seem intuitive, however this can generally only be achieved if the household income has
sufficient to outlay the initial capital expenditure. Previous literature suggests that pro-environmental behaviours and investment are linked to income levels (Jansson et al 2011). As no correlations with weekly family income were found one plausible reason is that households are seeking
to take advantage of government subsidies, and if none, then they may not invest in such technologies. The third and highest correlation is No. of bedrooms in the house [r=0.035, n=91,331, p=

Measuring and predicting acceptance for photovoltaic technologies in Melbourne Victoria

55