Blood and soil: How kinship and geographic proximity drive rooftop photovoltaic adoption in rural China

The widespread adoption of distributed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems in rural China remains a pressing challenge in the post-subsidy phase of the country's energy transition. This study integrates Construal Level Theory with peer influence perspectives to investigate how kinship ties (“blood”) and geographic proximity (“soil”) jointly shape household PV adoption decisions. Using a novel “kinship–spatial” factorial design and survey data from 2240 households in Jizhou District, Tianjin, the study isolates the causal effects of both dimensions. The results show that while geographic proximity significantly increases adoption willingness, kinship proximity has an even stronger effect—recommendations from relatives or clan members boost adoption likelihood by over 25 %. Moreover, the interaction between the two is synergistic: households embedded in both dense kinship networks and geographically proximate clusters are far more likely to adopt PV systems. These findings underscore the pivotal role of kinship-embedded social dynamics in driving renewable energy diffusion and suggest that policies leveraging both clan-based trust and neighborhood visibility could substantially accelerate the rural energy transition.