Green electricity is an effective approach to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions without damaging economic development. One effective measure to boost its development is to increase the awareness of residents about sustainable development and to increase their willingness to pay (WTP). This study applies a contingent valuation method to investigate the WTP of residents in Tianjin, China for green electricity. It uses a logit model to test whether the respondents have WTP. In addition to the factors affecting the respondents’ viewpoints frequently discussed in previous studies, this paper has also considered the influence of high prevalence of respiratory disease. Furthermore, it employs a multiple regression model to identify the factors that significantly affected the WTP. According to a sample of 468 respondents, most residents have positive WTP with an average value of CNY 32.63 per month. The main driving factors for a positive WTP are knowledge of renewable energy, belief towards the government, behavior, education, history of respiratory disease and others. The factors affecting the value of WTP include income, belief, disease, gender and age, and the first three factors often have positive influences while the last one has negative impact. Furthermore, males tend to have a higher WTP than females. •Influence of poor air quality and prevalence of respiratory disease are considered.•Majority of respondents have positive attitudes to developing green electricity.•Knowledge, belief, behavior, education and health condition are positively factors.•Income, gender and age affect the value of Willingness to Pay significantly.•Improving the transparency of governance is an effective way to increase WTP.