This report examines incentives available to reduce the cost of owning and operating a PV system and creative ways to combine them into a comprehensive financial package for residential PV systems. This report explains new financing mechanisms such as solar leases, residential power purchase agreements, property tax assessment models, renewable energy credit-based loans and community-based PV deployment models that are being offered by states and municipalities to support residential PV deployment.

Download the document (pdf)
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/44853.pdf

This report provides a comprehensive summary of installed cost trends for grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States from 1998 through 2007.  It is based on project-level data from nearly 37,000 residential and non-residential PV systems, totaling 363 MW of capacity and representing 76% of all grid-connected PV capacity installed in the U.S. through 2007.  These data were provided by 16 PV incentive programs spanning 12 states.

The report detials that average installed costs have declined over time, from $10.5/W in 1998 to $7.6/W in 2007 (in real 2007 dollars per installed watt DC).  Cost reductions are especially prevalent among smaller PV systems and are primarily attributable to reductions in non-module costs.  The distribution of installed costs has also narrowed significantly over time, with high-cost outliers becoming increasingly infrequent.  From 2005-2007, however, both average installed costs and the distribution of installed costs have remained relatively fixed.  Costs are generally lower in states with larger PV deployment programs, and international experience suggests that greater near-term cost reductions are possible, with Japan and Germany exhibiting significantly lower average installed costs for residential PV systems than the U.S.

The authors also find evidence of sizable economies of scale among the PV systems in our sample, significant variation in average installed cost among states, and cost advantages for PV installed in residential new construction relative to the retrofit market.  The report also describes trends in financial incentive levels over time, by customer type and among states, and the associated impact of these trends on the net installed cost of PV for residential and commercial PV system owners after receipt of incentives.

The report can be downloaded from:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/lbnl-1516e.pdf

A PowerPoint presentation that summarizes key findings can be found at:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/emp-ppt.html

Funding support for this report was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Program and Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, and the Clean Energy States Alliance.

In this report, the authors quantify the state-by-state per-capita ‘solar electric footprint’ for the United States. They use state-level data on population, electricity consumption, economic activity and solar insolation, along with solar photovoltaic (PV) array packing density data to develop a range of estimates of the solar electric footprint. They conclude that the solar electric footprint, defined as the land area required to supply all end-use electricity from solar photovoltaics, is about 181 m2 per person in the United States. Two key factors that influence the magnitude of the state-level solar electric footprint include how industrial energy is allocated (based on location of use vs. where goods are consumed) and the assumed distribution of PV configurations (flat rooftop vs. fixed tilt vs. tracking). The solar electric footprint is about 0.6% of the total land area of the United States with state-level estimates ranging from less than 0.1% for Wyoming to about 9% for New Jersey. The report also compares the solar electric footprint to a number of other land uses. For example, we find that the solar electric footprint is equal to less than 2% of the land dedicated to cropland and grazing in the United States.

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Source: NREL

This report, published by Environment California, quantifies the energy, environmental, and energy savings potential for solar water heating in California and across the United States.

In April 2007 Assembly Member Jared Huffman introduced AB 1470 to create California’s Solar Hot Water and Efficiency Act of 2007. CALSEIA is working closely with Environment California, the sponsor of this bill, to support its enactment.

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Souce: CAL SEIA

This report provides an overview of the technical potential of solar water heating to reduce fossil fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. residential and commercial buildings.

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File Format: PDF
Source: NREL

This NREL handbook is designed for agencies and utilities that offer or intend to offer incentive programs for customer-owned PV systems. Its purpose is to help select, design, and implement incentive programs that best meet programmatic goals. It discusses the various incentive structures that are used, and then discusses qualitative and quantitative tools to design appropriate incentive structures. It also includes a section on program administration considerations. This is an excellent resource for state policy makers considering the use of financial incentives for residential and commercial PV installations.

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Source: NREL

The SEIA Guide to Federal Tax Credits for Solar Energy provides comprehensive information as to how the incentives for both commercial and residential applications may be claimed. Key considerations in calculating the value of federal incentives for a solar project include:

• What types of solar equipment constitute “eligible property” for each of the
  incentives;
• Amount of the incentives;
• Conditions for a system to meet the definition of “put in service” (for example,
  the taxpayer must have taken legal title and control of the equipment);
• The value of the “tax credit basis”;
• Project timing issues arising from the tax credit window;
• Ownership structure of the project; and
• The effect of rebates, state tax credits, and other subsidies on the federal tax
  credits.

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Source: SEIA

This report provides an in-depth statistical analysis of PV system costs in California. Through mid-November 2005, a total of 130 MWAC of grid-connected solar capacity was installed throughout California, making that state the dominant market for PV in the United States, though it still stands a distant third on a worldwide basis behind Germany and Japan.

The results presented here are based on an analysis of 18,942 grid-connected PV systems totaling 254 MWAC, either installed, approved for installation, or waitlisted (approved but awaiting program funding) under what are currently the two largest PV programs in the state. This analysis provides insights on California’s PV market by exploring cost trends, and by untangling the various factors that affect the cost of PV systems. Results also have important policy ramifications, as they address the interaction between incentive levels and installed costs, and the relative cost of different PV applications.

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Source: LBNL