Exploring adoption scenarios for residential photovoltaic systems in Qatar

We present an agent-based model for residential adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems within the Al Rayyan municipality in the state of Qatar. Agents in the model are defined as households. Each household corresponds to a villa-type accommodation, which is either owned or rented. The objective of the model is to evaluate PV adoption in terms of these two household cohorts under diverse regulatory and incentive scenarios. Our study suggests that Qatar's residential PV adoption is strongly favored by the falling cost of PV and can be further facilitated through the reduction of electricity subsidies and the extension of the electricity tariff to Qatari households. The introduction of a carbon tax can also play a role in accelerating residential PV adoption, if above $8/tCO2e.