**4. Discussion**

The research findings show that awareness plays a vital role in fostering PE, EE, and FC. Given the nature of previous UTAUT research, which recorded a similar enthusiasm on awareness, most of these studies were relatively skewed to a non-green domain [29,36]. As such, the use of UTAUT to examine individual's adoption intentions in green domains is seen as relevant. Thus, the outcome of the present research would be a guiding principle to green researchers, particularly amongst researchers employing UTAUT in solar energy. Research on UTAUT, currently, is largely confined to technology adoption, mainly, e.g., e-wallet, digital platforms, and even contact tracing applications. Limited work has been done in the area of solar technology. Awareness proved its mettle again in the green context, thereby rendering a significant effect towards intention in the renewable energy segment [10,17] and recycling behaviour [30], as well as impressing its position on green research despite the scarcity of studies on PE, EE, FC, and awareness. Our findings suggest awareness of a particular technology, is a natural precursor to its final adoption.

Awareness is unprecedented for its ability to foster PE, EE, and FC, as documented in the current study, and to catalyse behavioural change [7] that is extremely tenable towards behavioural intention and the adoption of green technology [11]. Moreover, awareness resiliency, which is tested across many disciplines, and its agility, which is refined to various dimensions [36], reflect the fundamental essence of awareness. Therefore, awareness should be the core in inculcating green intention/behaviour. The reason is that the benefits of going green and sustainability can be exceptionally ingrained with awareness at the centre stage.

PE also revealed significant influence on the intention to adopt solar technology. A similar outcome was observed in [24] research on solar technology amongst households in Bangalore and Delhi, India. This outcome was also echoed correspondingly in the research of [52] on the Internet of Things-based smart metre intention amongst households in two important cities of Malaysia (Malacca and Putrajaya). By contrast, ref. [32] concluded that PE is not significant towards the intention to adopt in a small private online class amongst undergraduate accounting students in Indonesia. Nevertheless, PE is expected to persevere in the green context. Thus, a significant impact is expected to resurface amongst developing countries, bearing fruits from recent initiatives done towards inculcating green behaviour. Ref. [21] studied the intention to adopt green information systems in Malaysia and divided PE into two dimensions (human infrastructure and administrative policies). This research found that both dimensions were significant in rendering its effect on intention, thereby reflecting strongly about the role of PE. Moreover, PE is known to have a tenable impact on the intention for scoring the highest beta value observed across multiple studies in various fields [16,17,29]. Therefore, data in the current study imply that using solar technology will improve performance, particularly for its usefulness, which is depicted by the high indicator reliability of 0.894.

As mentioned, EE relates to the degree of simplicity accompanying the use of technology [8,25,32]. EE does not lead to the intention to adopt in the current study. The unexpected outcome stands in stark contrast with retrospectively documented empirical research and is relatively startling, specifically when EE has strong predictive power [41]. EE rendered on many occasions generates significant impact towards behavioural intention, particularly on recent studies conducted after 2017, in the green context [21,24,52] or nongreen field [34,37,43]. There could be two possibilities in our view that explains this finding. One could argue that EE is tightly coupled with awareness. In our case, it is suggested that the non-significant nature of EE was also occasionally observed such as in [32] in an online learning setting, and this pattern may prevail in Malaysia due to a limited affinity with solar technology amongst Malaysian households, thereby impacting their ability to gauge solar-related technologies. Therefore, the government and private businesses should collaborate and strategise plans to provide hands-on experience to consumers to familiarise themselves with solar technology services. Consumers with such experience will have a different mindset on solar technology usage, which could contribute positively to the adoption process. On the other hand, in relation to a model that predicts adoption intentions of any form of technology, EE is often related to the notion of the effort required to use a particular technology. Effort in the context of using solar, could be a trivial matter, or even non-consequential given post installation seamless use, perceived by potential users.

H6 is not supported. SI did not influence intention to adopt. This unexpected verdict from a green viewpoint stands in stark contrast with other documented empirical outcomes, as seen in [24], where SI rendered significant impact on intention to adopt solar technology among Indian households. A similar outcome was observed in [21] where SI, which is termed as institutional pressure, was seen to significantly influence green IS diffusion. Thus, the non-significant outcome in the present study could be caused by the urbanites' behaviour in the Malaysian Klang Valley. Households have great inclination to be independent regarding decision-making matters and are not lured away by those who are close and important in their circle of contact; such households are similar to Indonesian undergraduate accounting students that belong to Generation Y's age cohort, who are fundamentally independent and maintain individualism [32].

FC, which gravitates along with support and assistance towards a technology, is significant in rendering its influence on solar technology intention. The outcome is expected, particularly when solar services remain in the infant stage in Malaysia. Thus, prospective users would probably need the necessary support and aid. A similar outcome was seen in [35] research on crowdfunding intention, apart from [21] which divided FC into two

dimensions (IS infrastructure and knowledge accessibility) of which both dimensions were found to be significant towards green IS diffusion intention. Although the existence of PE and EE may dilute FC's influence on the intention to adopt, present research would partially concur with this notion after realising FC's significance despite experiencing PE's significance, backdropped by EE's insignificance. Numerous studies have differed and remained steadfast, thereby achieving significant PE, EE, and FC [18,35,43]. The existence of insignificant FC is underscored by the insignificant PE and EE [32], thereby intensifying the existing juxtaposition surrounding FC. Such a scenario may prevail, possibly owing to the position of FC, which was occasionally tested to intention and, in many instances, tested towards actual usage [16,34,39,43]. Therefore, FC is an important factor to be maintained in the UTAUT model, which is reiterated by [44] conceptual research on Malaysian SMEs. Ref. [44] exploratory factor analysis diluted and removed EE but not FC, which was maintained in the modified UTAUT model. Conditions that facilitate the adoption of technology is again a natural precursor to an intention–predictive model, as proven in this study as well.
