Is it really all about the return on investment? Exploring private wind energy investors' preferences

Achieving EU climate targets requires an immense volume of investments in renewable energies, especially in the field of wind energy. Private individuals can play an essential role in raising significant parts of the necessary financial resources. This requires, however, a thorough understanding of investors' preferences. Based on choice experiments by 725 German respondents who intend to invest in wind energy in the near future, this article shows that private individuals' investment decisions are not only made with profit maximization in mind. Furthermore, this study reveals that an individual's age, asset valuation and environmental attitude significantly affect the preference for different wind energy investment attributes. The findings of this study have important implications for financial institutions and for policy, as the findings indicate that private individuals are not well informed about many aspects of wind energy investments. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.