The Socio-economic Determinants of Energy Technology Awareness in Latin America and the Caribbean

The adoption of energy technologies like solar panels, LED bulbs, hybrid and electric vehicles; and energy-related mobile apps will transform an entire energy sector and give energy consumers a more central role inside energy markets. To drive the adoption of these technologies, we must first address technology awareness and examine the determining factors. This paper assesses the awareness of the five technologies aforementioned in sixteen Latin American and Caribbean countries based on information collected at the individual level. We propose a logistic model to identify the socioeconomic factors that explain the level of awareness of energy technologies in the region. The results show that an effective public policy that aims to increase the technological awareness and promote the adoption of energy-related technologies needs to consider variables such as gender, education, income level and energy-saving behavior and the use of social media.