ENERGY POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR POWER AS A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SOURCE: A STUDY BASED ON CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVES OF SRI LANKA

Abstract

Lack of opportunities to access energy services and products, deficiency of electricity to assist the socio-economic development, incompetency to reach quality standards in domestic energy services like cooking, space heating and cooling, use appliances and IT-related material. On the other side, sustainable development can be described as the capacity to withstand natural systems in order to deliver the resources and ecosystem services that are essential to the economy and society. Since energy crisis in Sri Lanka is getting worst, people are experiencing a deficiency of hydroelectricity and natural gas daily. Hence, Sri Lanka should look for alternative energy sources to sustain the economy. Out of many energy sources, the researcher identified solar energy as the best source to produce electricity need of the country. Therefore, this can be considered a topic worth rigorous investigation. The existing literature reveals a deficiency in theoretical and empirical knowledge on the usage of solar power as a sustainable energy. Therefore, the researcher aims to design a sound framework to develop solar power as sustainable energy source in Sri Lanka. To do that, the researcher introduced four objectives for this research. Having identified variables thrugh literature survey, a theoretical framework was developed indicating the relationships between variables. Theoretical framework was then operationalized associating relevant dimensions. As this research follows positivist and deductive approaches, Likert Scale will be used to formulate questionnaire to collect data quantitatively.