From fuelwood to photovoltaics: Socio-behavioral drivers and institutional enablers of household solar energy adoption in fossil-rich developing contexts

The global energy transition depends not only on technological innovation but fundamentally on the social and behavioral adaptation of end-users, particularly in fossil-rich developing contexts where entrenched subsidy architectures and culturally embedded energy practices marginalize decentralized clean technologies. This study investigates the socio-behavioral and institutional determinants of household solar energy adoption among forest-dwelling communities in the Zagros Mountains of Iran. Drawing on an extended Technology Acceptance Model integrated with the tripartite Social Acceptance Framework, we propose a Socio-Ecological Technology Acceptance Model (SETAM) that incorporates perceived cost and maintenance burden, institutional trust and policy support, environmental awareness, and subjective norms as predictive constructs. Using a hybrid analytical approach combining Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) analysis on survey data from 231 households, we demonstrate that subjective norms and perceived cost burden exert the strongest effects on adoption intention, while institutional trust functions as a critical enabler. The ANN analysis reveals non-linear cost thresholds and synergistic trust-norm interactions that linear models overlook. Environmental awareness operates indirectly through perceived usefulness, confirming that ecological knowledge translates into action only when households recognize tangible livelihood benefits. The findings advance a just energy transition paradigm by demonstrating that successful solar deployment requires addressing socio-institutional barriers alongside technical infrastructure. We recommend tiered, income-sensitive financing mechanisms, community-based maintenance cooperatives, and transparent institutional communication to bridge the persistent gap between renewable potential and sustained behavioral adoption in alignment with SDG 7 and SDG 13.