Photovoltaic (PV) Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections

This report helps to clarify the confusion surrounding different estimates of system pricing by distinguishing between past, current, and near-term projected estimates. It also discusses the different methodologies and factors that impact the estimated price of a PV system, such as system size, location, technology, and reporting methods.These factors, including timing, can have a significant impact on system pricing

Solar Energy: Incentives to Promote PV in EU27

The growth in the use of renewable energies in the EU has been remarkable. Among these energies is PV. The average annual growth rate for the EU-27 countries in installed PV capacity in the period 2005-2012 was 41.2%. While the installed capacity of PV has reached almost 82 % of National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) targets for the EU-27 countries for 2020, it is still far from being used at its full potential. Over recent years, several measures have been adopted in the EU to enhance and promote PV. This paper undertakes a complete review of the state of PV power in Europe and the measures taken to date to promote it in EU-27. 25 countries have adopted measures to promote PV. The most widespread measure to promote PV use is Feed- in Tariffs. Tariffs are normally adjusted, in a decreasing manner, annually. Nevertheless, currently, seven countries have decided to accelerate this decrease rate in view of cost reduction of the installations and of higher efficiencies. The second instrument used to promote PV in the EU-27 countries is the concession of subsidies. Nevertheless, subsidies have the disadvantage of being closely linked to budgetary resources and therefore to budgetary constraints. In most EU countries, subsidies for renewable energy for PV are being lowered. Twelve EU-27 countries adopted tax measures. Low-interest loans and green certificate systems were only sparingly used

The impact of policies and business models on income equity in rooftop solar adoption

Low- and moderate-income (LMI) households are less likely to adopt rooftop solar photovoltaics (PVs) than higher-income households in the United States. As the existing literature has shown, this dynamic can decelerate rooftop PV deployment and has potential energy justice implications, in light of the cost-shifting between PV and non-PV households that can occur under typical rate structures and incentive programmes. Here we show that some state policy interventions and business models have expanded PV adoption among LMI households. We find evidence that LMI-specific financial incentives, PV leasing and property-assessed financing have increased the diffusion of PV adoption among LMI households in existing markets and have driven more installations into previously underserved low-income communities. By shifting deployment patterns, we posit that these interventions could catalyse peer effects to increase PV adoption in low-income communities even among households that do not directly benefit from the interventions

The impact of policies and business models on income equity in rooftop solar adoption

Low- and moderate-income (LMI) households are less likely to adopt rooftop solar photovoltaics (PVs) than higher-income households in the United States. As the existing literature has shown, this dynamic can decelerate rooftop PV deployment and has potential energy justice implications, in light of the cost-shifting between PV and non-PV households that can occur under typical rate structures and incentive programmes. Here we show that some state policy interventions and business models have expanded PV adoption among LMI households. We find evidence that LMI-specific financial incentives, PV leasing and property-assessed financing have increased the diffusion of PV adoption among LMI households in existing markets and have driven more installations into previously underserved low-income communities. By shifting deployment patterns, we posit that these interventions could catalyse peer effects to increase PV adoption in low-income communities even among households that do not directly benefit from the interventions

Photovoltaic (PV) Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections

This report helps to clarify the confusion surrounding different estimates of system pricing by distinguishing between past, current, and near-term projected estimates. It also discusses the different methodologies and factors that impact the estimated price of a PV system, such as system size, location, technology, and reporting methods.These factors, including timing, can have a significant impact on system pricing

Tracking the Sun 10: The Installed Price of Residential and Non-Residential Photovoltaic Systems in the United States

Berkeley Lab’s Tracking the Sun report series is dedicated to summarizing trends in the installed price of grid-connected, residential and non-residential systems solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States. The present report, the tenth edition in the series, focuses on systems installed through year-end 2016, with preliminary data for the first half of 2017. The report provides an overview of both long-term and more-recent trends, highlighting key drivers for installed price declines over different time horizons. The report also extensively characterizes the widespread variability in system pricing, comparing installed prices across states, market segments, installers, and various system and technology characteristics. The trends described in this report derive from project-level data collected by state agencies and utilities that administer PV incentive programs, solar renewable energy credit (SREC) registration systems, or interconnection processes. In total, data for this report were compiled and cleaned for more than 1.1 million individual PV systems, though the analysis in the report is based on a subset of that sample, consisting of roughly 630,000 systems with available installed price data. The full underlying dataset of project-level data (excluding any confidential information) is available in a public data file, for use by other researchers and analysts

The impacts of net metering on utility profits and rates: Case studies of two prototypical utilities

Heated debates about the impact of net metering on utility shareholders and ratepayers have surfaced in some of the larger state solar markets and will only become more pronounced and widespread as solar costs decline and deployment accelerates. In order to inform these discussions, we performed a scoping analysis to quantify the magnitude of the financial impacts of distributed PV on utility shareholders and ratepayers, and that assesses the potential efficacy of various options for mitigating those impacts. We quantify the impacts of customer-sited PV for two prototypical investor-owned utilities: a vertically integrated utility located in the southwest and a wires-only utility and default service supplier located in the northeast. For each utility, we model the impacts of customer-sited PV over a 20-year period, estimating changes to utility costs, revenues, average rates, and utility shareholder earnings and return-on-equity

Sources of price dispersion in U.S. residential solar installations

Prices of solar PV have dropped dramatically, by half in just the past 6 years. But looking simply at prices paid today, there is considerable heterogeneity. For systems installed in 2014, the 10-90 percentile range for the observed $/W spans nearly a factor of 2. This apparent price dispersion raises policy-relevant questions, such as: why are consumers paying more than they need to? And would better-informed consumers increase the social benefits of solar PV? This paper analyzes price dispersion in U.S. residential PV installations between 2008 and 2014. Focusing on the most commonly used metric in previous studies of price dispersion, we use the quarterly coefficient of variation (CV) as our measure of price dispersion. We find higher levels of price dispersion in our data (0.22) than the average of 55 previous studies we reviewed (0.16). We also find that price dispersion has been persistent; it has remained above 0.15 since 2000 with no trend over that period. If anything, price dispersion has been increasing recently during the period for which we have complete data, 2008-14. Econometric analysis of the factors affecting price dispersion supports theories from the economic literature focusing on access to information and the costs and benefits of consumer search. Factors that increase the consumer payoffs of investing time in searching for information—system size and the value of solar—are associated with lower levels of price dispersion. Factors that reduce the costs of search—neighbors who have recently installed solar and having third-party quotes available—are also associated with less price dispersion. These results provide support for the importance of public efforts to enhance access to price information, e.g. by supporting price quote providers. The results also point to the particular need for information in nascent markets for PV in which access to the experience of neighbors is not available

Characteristics of low-priced solar PV systems in the U.S.

Despite impressive declines in average prices, there is wide dispersion in the prices of U.S. solar photovoltaic (PV) systems; prices span more than a factor of four. What are the characteristics of the systems with low-prices? Using detailed characteristics of 42,611 small-scale (<15 kW) PV systems installed in 15 U.S. states during 2013, we identify the most important factors that make a system likely to be low-priced (LP). Comparing LP and non-LP systems, we find statistically significant differences in nearly all characteristics for which we have data. Logit and probit model results robustly indicate that LP systems are associated with: markets with few active installers; experienced installers; customer ownership; large systems; retrofits; and thin-film, low-efficiency, and Chinese modules. We also find significant differences across states, with LP systems much more likely to occur in some states, such as Arizona, New Jersey, and New Mexico, and less likely in others, such as California. Our focus on the left tail of the price distribution provides implications for policy that are distinct from recent studies of mean prices. While those studies find that PV subsidies increase mean prices, we find that subsidies also generate LP systems. PV subsidies appear to simultaneously shift and broaden the price distribution. Much of this broadening occurs in a particular location, northern California