Which solar inverter manufacturers are most financially stable?  Sinovoltaics, in its latest financial stability ranking of inverter manufacturers lists Hoymiles, Eaton and others at the top. 

Biden issues new proclamation on solar cell tariffs  Tariffs on solar cells remain, but volume increases from 5 GW to 12.5 GW.

What happens when solar is installed without homeowner’s permission A Connecticut couple and several companies including Sunrun have been sued by the state’s Attorney General for forging signatures, faking a voices, and unlawfully installing solar panels on a home without the owners’ consent.

Ebon Solar to invest nearly $1 billion in U.S. solar cell factory The solar cell manufacturing facility is to be located in New Mexico and expected to bring over 900 jobs to the area.

IRA 2-year anniversary: A look at its successes and failures David Burton, attorney with Norton Rose Fulbright and specialist in energy tax law, looks at tax credit transfer, domestic content, energy communities, prevailing wage and more.

People on the move: Green Lantern, FTC Solar, Perch Energy and more Job moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy transition finance.

PNNL unveils Grid Storage Launchpad to bring together researchers to tackle energy storage tech A new building at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory aims to unite researchers and stakeholders to push forward advancements in grid storage technologies.

What happens when solar is installed without homeowner’s permission A Connecticut couple and several companies including Sunrun have been sued by the state’s Attorney General for forging signatures, faking a voices, and unlawfully installing solar panels on a home without the owners’ consent.

Aurora Solar introduces solar models powered by EagleView EagleView brings its geospatial data and imagery library to Aurora’s solar modeling function, helping installers to design, plan and validate solar projects.

Pivot Energy partners with Microsoft to develop up to 500 MW of community solar  The portfolio is planned to be developed in locations across the United States from 2025 through 2029.

SunPower goes bankrupt The company, one of the longest running solar companies in the U.S., spun off its manufacturing business in 2020 to focus more squarely on rooftop solar as demand surged. Since then, demand cooled considerably, and, under a high interest rate environment, the strategy proved fatal for the company.

Goldman Sachs invests $440 million in renewable independent power producer  The strategic investment in BrightNight will support the development of utility, commercial, and industrial solar and energy storage projects.

More money is going into solar than all other forms of generation combined, reaching $500 billion in 2024 The International Energy Agency projects that solar will attract more investment than all other electricity generation sources combined. Global energy spending is set to surpass $3 trillion for the first time this year.

Republicans request continuation of IRA post-January Eighteen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to preserve the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if their party takes control of the political reins in January.

Sunrun stock rises on strong cash generation in Q2 earnings The residential solar and energy storage provider increased its battery attachment rates and net subscriber value of its customers.

The evolving art and science of agrivoltaics At Bluewave, integrating solar technology with traditional farming practices isn’t just a concept, it’s the new standard. Jesse Robertson-DuBois, director of sustainable solar development, shares insights on the transformative journey of agrivoltaics within the industry.

Renewables “cheaper and faster” than methane, says nation’s largest utility NextEra’s Q2 2024 quarterly earnings report shows significant growth in the company’s renewable pipeline. However, the group, which is typically exacting, refused to put a hard number on their future demand growth expectations.

Battery fire shuts down California highway A utility-scale battery delivery overturned on a highway after the truck carrying the batteries collided with a car, overcorrected, tipped to the side and dumped its cargo, leading to a fire that lasted more than 24 hours.

Bill aims to cut 45X tax credits for Chinese solar makers While the lucrative tax credits has attracted clean energy manufacturers from around the world to build factories in the U.S., the fact that many of the new manufacturing facilities are from Chinese companies has created a controversy that this new bill aims to solve.

Massive 900 MW solar project designed to preserve agricultural land Brookfield Renewable Partners filed a notice of intent for a 900 MW solar project in Oregon that will be installed in ribbons along the edge of a field to allow for continued agricultural use of the land

Residential solar company SunPower stock crashes 70% The company’s share price fell below $1 as it announced it is halting some operations and ending its lease and power purchase agreement offerings, among other actions.

How long do residential solar panels last? Multiple factors affect the productive lifespan of a residential solar panel. In the first part of this series, we look at the solar panels themselves.

U.S. Senators introduce comprehensive energy permitting reform act Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) released the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, promising to accelerate the permitting processes for energy and mineral projects of all types in the U.S.

WoodMac says global solar tracker shipments grew by 28% in 2023 Global tracker shipments reached 92 GWdc last year, according to WoodMackenzies’ latest report. The US accounted for the majority of the global market, with three US-based manufacturers, Nextracker, Array Technologies and GameChange Solar, ranking as the three largest shippers in the world.

Interview: My experience as a battery energy storage homeowner What is it like being a residential solar and energy storage prosumer living in California? Ahmad Faruqui, economist-at-large, shares his perspective with pv magazine USA .

Elastocalorics could replace heat pumps, air conditioning systems Elastocalorics have the potential to replace current air conditioning and heating systems, offering significant energy savings when paired with technologies such as photovoltaics.

First Solar probes potential infringement of TOPCon patents First Solar says it is evaluating potential infringement of its patents for its TOPCon tech, secured through the acquisition of TetraSun in 2013. The U.S. thin-film solar module manufacturer has not named the companies involved or given a timeline for the investigation.

The Energy Information Administration reported in its monthly electric power industry report that battery adoption rates are rising among solar customers in California.

In October 2023, about 20% of California solar shoppers opted to include a battery energy storage system in their installation. In April 2024, that number has climbed to over 50%.

The change to battery-included systems is largely due to the transition to Net Energy Metering 3.0, a regulatory structure that decreased the amount paid to customers for sending solar production directly to the grid. Due to an hourly mismatch of peak solar production and peak electricity demand, regulators shifted compensation rates to place an emphasis on storing and dispatching solar generated electricity when it is needed the most.

A 50% or greater battery attachment rate is a significant change for the state’s solar industry. Solar-plus-battery systems make up about 9% of all installed residential net metering capacity in California. Over 40,000 new systems were added between October 2023 and April 2024, accounting for 232 MW of new battery storage capacity in the state, said EIA.

While NEM 3.0 achieved its intended effect of encouraging more battery installations, the rulemaking decision was unpopular with solar advocates. The change increased the overall sticker price for installing solar, and while you get the added benefit of battery backup during outages, the amount of time it will take to breakeven on a solar investment in California has increased. This has led to a decline in installations, with Q1 2024 having the lowest installed capacity in a quarter since 2021 with a little over 300 MW of solar installed.

California now has more than 12,000 MW of installed solar capacity in residential net metering systems smaller than 1 MW. Residential installations account for more than 70% of installed net metering capacity, and about one-third of total installed solar capacity in the state.

“Our data show that during the third quarter of 2023, 83,376 new residential net metering photovoltaic systems were installed, compared with 70,152 systems connected under the old NEM 2.0 rule during the same period in 2022. However, we cannot differentiate the systems that requested to be grandfathered to NEM 2.0,” said EIA.

The first quarter of 2024 saw an additional 46,631 systems installed. Since January 2022, an average of 21,000 solar systems were added every month.

Generac Power Systems announced it has been awarded a grant of up to $200 million over a five year term by the Department of Energy to install distributed solar and energy storage systems in Puerto Rico.

The funds come as part of the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund. Under the program’s Solar Access Fund, Generac will facilitate the installation of residential solar and storage for disadvantaged Puerto Rican households. Installations are expected to begin in August 2024.

The projects are planned to be installed in low-income areas that experience frequent and prolonged power outages as well as household where a resident has energy-dependent disability needs.

The program will also help Puerto Rico achieve its renewable energy and resilience goals. In 2017, when back-to-back hurricanes destroyed around 80% of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and resulted in thousands of lives lost, Puerto Rico passed Act 17, a policy to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.

“We’ve been providing reliable backup power solutions to the people of Puerto Rico for more than 20 years, including after Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s power grid and left 95% of residents without electricity,” said Aaron Jagdfeld, president and CEO at Generac. He added, “We are proud to be a recipient of this DOE grant to provide clean, resilient, efficient power for those who are often underserved during outages.”

Generac will be partnering with several companies on the program:

• PathStone, a nonprofit organization providing community and workforce development and humanitarian services in Puerto Rico since 1998 and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), a clean energy non-profit established in 1982 that leads groundbreaking community programs and market research, will together coordinate additional local community efforts to serve as liaisons between Solar Ambassadors, installers, and eligible recipients.
• FR-BLDM, a leading local contractor with years of government program management experience will lead installations working with other local, small, family-owned businesses in Puerto Rico.
• Juapi Energy, a PWRcell installer and Generac Service Dealer in Puerto Rico will provide service support to residents and will perform installations.
• Palmetto, a leading climate technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, will extend three of its commercial software applications: fintech platform, installation partner portal, and asset management services.

“Supporting local companies is an important part of our objective to provide reliable and sustainable
energy solutions to Puerto Rico’s most vulnerable communities,” said Norm Taffe, president of Energy Technology at Generac.

Distributed solar and storage programs in Puerto Rico have already shown some success. In May, residential solar company Sunrun said  it had enrolled nearly 1,800 customers and more than 2,000 batteries onto its PowerOn Puerto Rico program. Sunrun’s battery fleet dispatches stored solar energy from customers’ batteries to stabilize the grid and avoid blackouts and the use of fossil fuel power plants. Customers are compensated for their participation, with Sunrun predicting at least an average of $550 per customer. Sunrun expects that there will be between 50 and 125 events per year that will require Sunrun’s fleet of enrolled systems to provide on-demand energy, stabilizing the local grid.

Read more about the Department of Energy’s grid modernization programs.

After impressive installation growth rates of roughly 30% in 2021 and 2022, residential solar began to cool off in 2023 as high interest rates and policy changes challenged the value being offered to homeowners. In 2024, the market continues to weather the high interest rate storm, and numerous large installers have announced bankruptcies.

Phil Shen, managing director, Roth Capital Partners hosted a webinar featuring experts in the residential solar industry to provide a snapshot of the market as it moves through the summer sales cycle.

Data platform Ohm Analytics said it expects U.S. residential solar installations to be down 20% year over year in 2024 as the market adjusts to the rate environment and increasingly includes batteries in customer offerings. Roth reiterated the down 20% outlook.

As for 2025, Ohm Analytics expects the market to slowly recover. The company placed a 5% to 10% year over year growth forecast for installations next year, with 2026 forecast to grow at a similar rate. Fore a five year outlook, Ohm expects a “stable build” in the market.

The market should also expect a lift from the domestic content bonus within the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes projects eligible for a 10% tax credit adder if they meet requirements for including U.S.-made components in their project. Details of how this credit will be shared among financers, sales teams, installers, and customers are still being ironed out, but Shen noted that the credit makes a notable $0.50 per watt of value for residential customers.

Regionally, there are significant differences in growth, battery attachment rates, and technology being used.

For example, Matthew McFadden, owner and chief executive officer of SunnyMac Solar, shared that his firm, a solar sales platform serving New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland said business has been steady in 2024. Looking out to 2025, he expects this region to undergo at least 10% to 20% year on year growth, though he said this could be as much as doubled.

SunnyMac said its Mid-Atlantic region remains a low battery attachment rate market, with less than 1% of sales including battery energy storage. McFadden said this is set to change in 2025, as Maryland’s lucrative battery incentive program rolls out and legislation in New Jersey is developed. He said that battery attachment rates in New Jersey are expected to increase four to ten times next year.

McFadden said his team is also targeting expansion into western Pennsylvania, where nearly every community is designated as an Energy Community under the Inflation Reduction Act, potentially making projects eligible for a 10% tax credit adder on top of the base 30% investment tax credit.

SunnyMac said it is currently using about 95% SolarEdge inverters and 5% Enphase in its projects. McFadden said that this market share is likely to be ceded to Tesla as battery adoption rises, since Tesla’s Powerwall 3 offers an attractive low-cost bundle of battery storage and inverters.

For the Southwest and West, market dynamics are much different. Caleb Antonucci, chief executive officer of sales platform Our World Energy said its markets of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas said his firm’s sales were up 60% year-over-year. He said that as more smaller installers go bankrupt, firm’s like Our World Energy and SunnyMac are absorbing existing sales teams and growing.

The technology mix is much different in this region. Our World Energy has historically offered Enphase inverters in 100% of its projects, but market share has begun to turn over to Tesla. In Southwest markets, Tesla inverters are now about 20% of the market share, as they are offered as a low-cost bundle with the Powerwall 3 battery. Antonucci said that Tesla’s market share may grow to 50% in 2025, and may even grow to 90% or more in the coming years as it dominates SolarEdge and Enphase on cost.

Shen shared that Tesla inverters are priced at $0.05 per watt or less when bundled with storage, while SolarEdge inverters add about $0.24 per watt and Enphase roughly $0.30 per watt.

Antonucci expects flat growth for his region in 2025, and highlighted Colorado and Texas as leading markets. Battery incentive programs in Colorado are expected to drive growth. He said that sales teams are shifting their approaches to lead with battery energy storage and include solar as a bonus. Antonucci said demand will continue to grow as younger generations that have strong sentiments toward renewable energy begin to purchase homes and add solar. He said that a shift toward leased systems is helping establish revenue growth as well.

Overall, the panel recognized 2023 and 2024 as years of recovery, restructuring, and consolidation. As more federal and state incentives go online, and interest rates possibly cool by year’s end, there are several positive forces ahead.

Demand is expected to continue as well. Ohm Analytics highlighted a Forbes survey that showed 90% of home solar owners were satisfied with their system. Energy independence was listed as the main reason for going solar, while bill savings was the second most important benefit listed by respondents.

Nature’s Generator added a 50-amp 120/240V 12-circuit transfer switch its lineup of power transfer switches.

Designed to connect a home power supply to a solar-powered home’s power supply to a battery backup system, this 50-amp switch provides homeowners with the option to power more circuits than lower amp models. The company reports that the 50-amp model can handle up to 12,000 watts of power for 12 circuits (6 of 240V circuits or 12 of 120V circuits).

These switches, when connected to a home’s power supply and solar-powered battery-backup generator system, enable homeowners to manually choose when to power the selected circuits from their solar generator system.

The switches work by isolating the backup power from utility power. Nature’s Generator reports that its switches are code compliant and certified according to ISO/IEC Guide 17067, Conformity Assessment-Fundamentals of Product Certification, System 3, and in accordance with UL 1008 and CAN/CSA C22.2 No. 178.1. Although the transfer switch is prewired and designed for ease of installation, a licensed electrician is recommended

In September 2023 Nature’s Generator introduced a 30-Amp 12-circuit 120/240-Volt transfer switch.

“Our transfer switches integrate easily with home load centers,” explains Lawrence Zhou, CEO of Nature’s Generator. “During  outages, the manual switch can power a home’s selected circuits keeping families safe by providing power for lighting and important electrical appliances. Additionally, with utilities’ higher peak-use rates, transfer switches empower homeowners to avoid those costs — saving money while saving the planet.”

The company says its switches can be used with other battery-backup solar generators as well as fossil fuel-powered generators. The caveat is that gas or propane generators require the inlet box (included with the 50-Amp model) be installed outdoors for safety from noxious fossil fuel fumes.

The retail price on the 50-amp Transfer Switch is currently $499.95. Click here for more details.

In less than a decade, data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie forecasts that the world will multiply its total renewable energy capacity.

From 2024 to 2033, the firm forecasts that 4.7 TW of DC solar capacity will be installed globally. China is expected to contribute 50% of the total.

Solar and wind together are expected to add 5.4 TW through this period, increasing the global total to 8 TW. Energy storage capacity is expected to grow by more than 600%, with 1 TW expected to come online over the period.

“Global demand for renewables has reached unprecedented levels, driven by country-level policy targets, technology innovation, and concerns over energy security. Integrated power technology solutions will continue to evolve, evidenced by a significant increase in storage-paired capacity growth, despite inflation, grid constraints and permitting challenges,” said Luke Lewandowski, vice president, global renewables research at Wood Mackenzie.

The firm forecasts that 500 GW of new solar and wind capacity installed in 2023, and average 560 GW annually over the 10-year outlook. Solar is expected to account for 59% of global capacity added over the period.

In the first quarter, U.S. developers installed more solar in the first quarter of 2024 than in all of 2019. Installations in China were up 36% year-on-year, and new capacity in India through Q1 were equivalent to 85% total capacity installed in 2023. However, Europe’s distributed solar boom has started to weaken, with first quarter residential installations contracting more than 30% in Germany and over 50% in the Netherlands as retail rates come down.

“Ultra-low module prices intensified the rate of solar deployments last year in Europe and China and will continue to do so in the near-term. But grid constraints and a return to lower power prices and subsequently lower capture rates will impact markets and other regions,” said Juan Monge, principal analyst, distributed solar PV at Wood Mackenzie.

Monge added that maximizing solar capacity in the next 10 years will depend on additional technology developments from expanding grid infrastructure to incentivizing flexibility solutions, transportation and heating electrification.

Drastic drops in solar module prices and tight interconnection deadlines have triggered 150% annual growth for PV installations globally, said Wood Mackenzie. The firm expects this growth curve to continue until 2026, when there may be a two-year slowdown due to an expected pause in development activity before the next round of planned procurement drives higher deployment.

Meanwhile the global energy storage market is on track to reach 159 GW/358 GWh by the of 2024. Looking ahead, 926 GW/2789 GWh is expected to be added between 2024 and 2033, marking a 636% increase.

“The growth represents just the start for a multi-TW market as policy support in terms of tax exemption and capacity and hybrid auctions accelerate storage buildout across all regions,” said Anna Darmani, principal analyst, energy storage, at Wood Mackenzie.

The New York Solar Energy Industries Association (NYSEIA) has issued a report to Governor Kathy Hochul, requesting a raised target for the state’s distributed solar targets.

NYSEIA specifically requested an increased target for the buildout of distributed solar projects, which are typically installed on rooftops, carports or other built-environment locations for homes and businesses.

Under New York’s current climate strategy, the state targets 10 GW of distributed solar by 2030. NYSEIA has called for this to be doubled five years later, reaching 20 GW by 2035.

NYSEIA projects achieving this goal would lead to $50 billion in gross electric bill savings; $3 to $4 billion in revenue for rural landowners, municipalities and school districts; and support an additional 15,000 jobs in the solar industry.

New York is a leader in distributed solar buildout. About 90% of the state’s solar capacity is distributed, a much higher percentage than solar heavy states like California and Texas that have invested heavily in large, centralized utility-scale projects.

New York added more than 800 MW of distributed solar capacity last year alone and is on track to surpass 6 GW by the end of 2024, one year ahead of schedule.

“Scaling up distributed solar deployment will deliver cost-effective progress toward New York’s overall climate goals while delivering immense benefits to New York’s environment, economy, and working families,” said Noah Ginsburg, executive director, NYSEIA.

In 2019, New York enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), directing New York to be powered with 70% renewable energy by 2030, 100% renewable energy by 2040, and a carbon neutral economy by 2050. 

Since then, a wave of high-profile utility-scale renewable project cancellations has jeopardized the feasibility of achieving 70% renewable energy by 2030, said NYSEIA.

“As New York struggles to meet its ambitious renewable energy mandates, legislative leaders and regulators must take decisive action,” said Ginsburg.

In 2023, Governor Hochul enacted a 10-point action plan to get utility-scale renewable projects back on track. However, NYSEIA said while utility-scale projects are important, they are not enough to meet New York’s mandates. To double solar cumulative solar deployment in six short years, distributed rooftop solar can be deployed rapidly to fill the gap.

There is hope yet for New York to achieve its climate goals. Solar deployment has grown at an average 31% annual growth from 2013-2022. To reach the new 20 GW by 2035 goal, the state will need to sustain 7-10% annual growth in deployment. NYSEIA said this was driven in part by the state’s leading community solar program.

NYSEIA advocates for the following policy changes to achieve the goal:

• Interconnection reform and flexible interconnection to lower clean energy costs and accelerate deployment 
• Streamlined permitting for rooftop and community solar
• Virtual power plant programs and dynamic rate design to compensate distributed solar and energy storage for exporting power when and where it’s needed
• Continued investment in New York’s nation-leading community solar programs to provide even more direct bill savings to low-income New Yorkers

“Distributed solar has performed so well in New York because it fits the nature of our state,” said Senator Pete Harckham, chair of the environmental conservation committee. “We have a unique mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities that can support a diverse portfolio of renewable energy projects, and it’s time we lean into our character as a state.”

Find the full roadmap here.

From pv magazine Global

Monalee, a U.S.-based software company has developed a web-based platform to enable investing in residential rooftop PV and related home energy systems. The company serves consumer solar PV markets in the states shown on the map.

The software provides estimates, quotes, financing, permitting, installation, and interconnection services after the homeowner enters their address, current bill, and choice of PV or battery, or both. It also calculates savings, a subsidy or credit calculator, and after-sales support via an app.

“Ordering and completing solar purchases must move online because that is what consumers want. They are used to it, even for major purchases such as buying a car,” Monalee CEO and co-founder Walid Halty, told pv magazine, adding that the challenge with solar is the need for site visits to be able to develop the project.

Monalee solved the site visit challenge by tapping into geographical information system (GIS) data and imagery from Google Maps via an application programming interface (API), known as Solar API.

“But the Solar API covered only half of the U.S.,” said Halty, describing how the company partnered with earth imaging specialists that provided photogrammetry LIDAR and drone imagery data for wider coverage.

Deep learning techniques were applied to enable the software to detect roof edges, for example, or to identify building features, such as a chimney or air conditioning units.

Monalee is a licensed general contractor and master electrician in 24 U.S. states. It works with small to midsize installers as sub-contractors, as well as other partners, such as equipment suppliers and finance providers to supply the services sold via its platform, according to Halty, who said that the company has served 1,900 homeowners since its founding in 2022. He attributes it to the service being “less time-consuming” and “more economical” compared to conventional methods.

Monalee reports that it uses Mitrex 405 solar panels and Tesla inverters. It is also a Certified Tesla dealer and uses the Tesla Powerwall for residents who opt for energy storage.

Offering lower prices has led to some unexpected results. “We were surprised to see demand in parts of the country, like Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky, that are not typically big solar markets due to lower electricity prices. The largest market by volume are Florida and California, as expected,” said Halty.

Monalee has raised a total of $10 million in venture capital, with the most recent round closing in March 2024. The company has plans to expand to 35 states this year.

The  U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2024 report says 11 GW of new solar module manufacturing capacity came online in the United States during Q1 2024, the largest quarter of solar manufacturing growth in American history.

The report, released by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, estimates that total U.S. solar module manufacturing capacity now exceeds 26 GW annually.

In addition to solar manufacturing, the U.S. is also quickly ramping up solar installations. With 11.8 GW of new solar capacity installed thus far in 2024, total capacity now stands at 200 GW in the United States. The utility-scale segment alone accounts for nearly 10 GW of the new capacity added.

The report shows that the U.S. added over 40 GW of new solar capacity last year, and Wood Mackenzie now projects that the U.S. is on target to achieve the same goal in 2024.

“This quarter proves that new federal investments in clean energy are revitalizing American manufacturing and strengthening our nation’s energy economy,” said SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. “Whether it’s a billion-dollar investment in a nearby solar project or a new manufacturing plant employing hundreds of local workers, the solar and storage industry is uplifting communities in every state across this country.”

The report points to Florida and Texas as leaders in new solar capacity in Q1. Florida installed 2.7 GW in Q1 and Texas 2.6 GW. California, historically a solar leader, falls into third place with 1.4 GW of new installs; however, it is notable that in 2023, Texas installed nearly 12 GW, while California was about 6.4 GW. New Mexico is another leading market with 686 MW installed in Q1, with Ohio following close behind at 546 MW. Bringing up the bottom is North Dakota, Alabama and Alaska.

“The U.S. solar industry continues to show strength in terms of deployments,” said Michelle Davis, head of global solar at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report. “At the same time, the solar industry faces a number of challenges to its continued growth including availability of labor, high voltage equipment constraints, and continued trade policy uncertainty.”

The residential solar segment has been hard hit by high interest rates and unsupportive state policies. California, where the highly controversial NEM 3.0 went into effect, experienced its worst quarter in two years. Overall the residential sector installed 1.3 GWdc in Q1, reflecting a 25% decline year-over-year and 18% quarter-over-quarter but going forward residential solar is expected to be steady.

Commercial solar showed 23% growth in 2023 and expected to grow by another 14% in 2024. This sector is somewhat buoyed by California projects that were submitted under NEM 2.0 still being in the interconnection queue.

Looking at community solar, installations resulted in 279 MWdc of new capacity in Q1, with New York topping the charts at 17% year-over-year in Q1 2024, making up 46% of national installed capacity.

Again, state policy changes in California are punching holes in a previously growing market. As a result of the CPUC’s vote on AB 2316, the report authors revised their five-year outlook for California and now expects just 200 MW rather than the 1.5 GW—an 87% decline. Overall the community solar market is expected to grow 4% in 2024, exceeding 1.3 GWdc of annual capacity.

Questions and challenges

With many unanswered questions about tariffs on imported solar modules and other components, the report contends that a tariff increase will not have a significant direct impact on the U.S. solar industry, given that the U.S. is importing less than 0.1% from China at the present time.

Moving forward, the report’s five-year outlooks expects the U.S. industry to install around 40 GWdc a year for the next five years. Trade policy uncertainty coupled with shortages in workers as well as high-voltage equipment, will keep overall growth in the single digits through 2029. The five year projection, however, is for U.S. solar capacity to grow to 438 GW by 2029.

Cowboy Solar, largest solar project in Wyoming moves forward The $1.2 billion project will be built by Enbridge, with 771 MW expected to be fully operational by 2027.

Battery energy storage tariffs tripled; domestic content rules updated Breaking down U.S. market impacts on energy storage from recent policy changes with insights from Clean Energy Associates.

California transitioned its rooftop solar policy on April 15, 2023, eliminated net energy metering (NEM) and moving toward a net billing tariff (NBT) structure. The change essentially cut the rate paid to customers for exporting their excess solar production to the grid by about 80%. On year later, Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has released a report evaluating changes in the state’s rooftop solar market.

LNBL found that rooftop solar installations in California were roughly equal in 2023 to 2022. However, 80% of the systems installed were NEM 2.0 installations rushing into interconnection queues before the April 15, 2023 deadline to secure the more lucrative rate structure. To date, about 50,000 systems have been interconnected under the new NBT structure, in addition to 200,000 NEM systems interconnected over the same period.

Data from EnergySage, operator of the largest residential solar quote site in the U.S., are “suggestive of a more sustained downturn,” said the report.

Quote requests spiked during the December 2022-April 2023 window between announcement and implementation of NBT. Since then, monthly quote requests have averaged roughly 60% of historical (2019-2021) levels.

A 40% drop in historical quote requests is a “leading indicator” for market activity and “is perhaps the clearest signal yet of a substantial and sustained market contraction,” said LBNL.

A significant contraction of the rooftop solar market is not an ideal outcome for California, a state with ambitious clean energy goals and an electricity affordability crisis. Trade association leaders have warned that California is unlikely to reach its clean energy targets without robust contributions from the rooftop solar industry.

(Read the opinion piece: “We must push back on net billing“)

However, the transition to NBT has created some outcomes in California that may be desirable. The profile of an installed system has changed considerably. Pre-NBT, customers attached battery energy storage with their rooftop array in roughly 10% of installations. Now, post-NBT installations include batteries 60% of the time.

This is important for California’s grid operators, that seek to smooth out the mismatch between solar generated electricity supply and demands on the grid. This mismatch, often represented by the “duck curve,” has been deepening in California, causing pricing and grid maintenance issues, and creating a need for inefficient natural gas “peaker” plants to serve times of high demand and low generation.

The high battery attachment rate offers customers some benefits, too. While the overall sticker price goes up with a battery-attached system, the return on investment has improved relative to a solar-only installation.

Installers report a median payback period of eight years for solar systems with a battery, while standalone solar systems have a longer median payback period of about 10 years. Battery storage enables customers to store their solar production and use it when grid prices are at their highest, rather than selling it to the grid at pennies on the dollar on sunny afternoons. Solar-battery owners also have the option to be compensated for exporting power during peak demand events or emergencies, potentially creating a new stream of revenue.

Customers with batteries also benefit from having backup power during grid outages, which remains the number one reason for including batteries nationwide, according to an installer survey by SolarReviews.

“Since November 2023, residential storage installs have averaged roughly 5,000 systems per month, more than double the monthly pace over the preceding three years,” said the report from LBNL.

The Berkeley Labs report noted a change in financing options for residential solar customers. Over the final 12-months of NEM, third party ownership rates, including leased and power purchase agreement systems, averaged 26% for stand-alone solar and 11% for solar and storage systems. This jumped up to 39% for standalone solar and 52% for solar plus storage under the NBT system. Some of this change may be attributed to increased interest rates creating loan terms for customers that are more difficult to digest.

Finally, the Berkeley Labs report noted an increase in consolidation in the California rooftop solar market. The market share of the top five installers in the state rose from 40% during the last year of NEM to 51% during the first year of NBT.

One year in, it is clear that the change to NBT has drastically altered the California rooftop solar industry. However, the backlog of NEM orders being served in 2023 has made it unclear what the total effect of this policy change will bring. This sets the stage for 2024 being a critical proving ground for the health of this industry.

“These trends, and others, will no doubt come into sharper focus over the next year or so, once the NEM backlog is fully cleared and a ‘new normal’ under NBT sets in,” concluded Galen Barbose, staff scientist, LBNL.

The U.S. recently exceeded five million solar installations, with the residential sector accounting for 97% of all solar installations in the U.S., according to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie.

A recent report, The state(s) of distributed solar—2023 update from the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), estimates that 29 GW of solar capacity was installed in 2023; 31% of which is distributed solar. Distributed solar is solar that is owned by individuals, small businesses and public entities—and is generated at or very near the site where it is used.

The map below shows how much distributed solar was installed in each state through 2023, relative to population.

For the purposes of the map, community solar in Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon is included as distributed solar.

To arrive at these figures, ILSR added its own figures on state community solar capacity to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) figures on small-scale photovoltaic capacity by state. This sum was divided by state population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, resulting in a figure of watts per person. The U.S. EIA did not collect data from Alabama or North Dakota.

A key finding is that 21 states and the District of Columbia have a distributed solar saturation of more than 100 watts per capita.

California, Arizona, Nevada, and Massachusetts all land in the top ten for both distributed solar saturation and total solar generation capacity.

California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina have the largest overall capacity whereas Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and California have the greatest distributed solar saturation, as measured in installed distributed solar capacity per capita.

Several state solar markets have made significant changes since ISLR’s 2022 update. Installed distributed capacity grew by more than 1 GW in Texas (6 GW), California (4.7 GW), Florida (2.5 GW), Ohio (1.8 GW), Virginia (1.2 GW), and Colorado (1.1 GW).

Five states doubled or more than doubled installed capacity in 2023, including South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Arkansas. While doubling capacity is good news, it still may not amount to much as both South Dakota and West Virginia are considered “solar laggards” according to PV Intel’s analysis, based on EIA data.

Other states that saw strong growth include Wisconsin, Indiana, Montana, Louisiana, Maine, and Michigan.

Community solar

Community solar provides a way for people to benefit from solar energy who may be unable to install solar either due to financial restrictions or because they do not have a suitable rooftop for solar.

ILSR’s 2024 Community Power Scorecard states that “a model community solar policy has no cap, has a fair compensation rate, simplifies the billing process for subscribers, meaningfully accounts for the challenge of reaching low- and moderate-income (LMI) subscribers, and rewards other beneficial development or small subscriber-friendly practices”.

ILSR reports that state policies like community solar, net metering, simplified interconnection rules and a renewable portfolio standard carve-out for distributed energy are crucial in promoting the adoption of distributed solar.

The distributed solar report notes that 19 states and the District of  Columbia currently have community solar policies and highlights nine states that ILSR calls “solar-enabling” for their strong community solar policies and installed capacity.

Total installed community solar capacity at the end of 2023:

1. New York 1.72 GW
2. Minnesota 904 MW
3. Massachusetts 852 MW
4. Illinois 251 MW
5. Maryland 149 MW
6. Colorado 147 MW
7. New Jersey 137 MW
8. Oregon 29 MW
9. Hawaii 4 MW

ILSR tracks these policies and others in its Community Power Map. According to the ILSR’s Community Power Scorecard, 26 received failing grades in 2024, suggesting that many states have much room for improvement.

ILSR’s State(s) of Distributed Solar analysis is updated annually. For a historical snapshot, explore archived analyses of distributed solar by state in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

Solar informational site SolarReviews released its annual survey, sharing results gathered from a group mostly represented by residential solar installers, as well as commercial installers, equipment providers, and utility-scale installers. SolarReviews operates a Solar Calculator that enables prospective customers to have a snapshot of the benefits of adding solar to their roof based on customized data for their area.

Finance 

With higher financing costs industry-wide, 54% of U.S. installers said customers were less likely to take a solar loan over the past year, while cash deals are up. About 49% of sales reported were cash deals, while 41% were loans. HELOC, PACE loans, power purchase agreements, and leases combined for 10% of reported solar sales. 

The top financing providers used were Credithuman (15%), Mosaic (14%), Sunlight Financial (9%),Dividend (8%), and Clean Energy Credit Union (8%). 

Typical loans for loaned systems varied widely depending on whether dealer fees were assigned. Average terms are seen below. 

Heightened cost of finance has pressed the residential solar industry. About half (49%) of installers said demand went down in 2023 versus 2022.

In California, where rates paid for exporting solar production to the grid were slashed by about 80%, about 69% of installers reported lower sales in California in 2023 versus 2022. However, 68% of installers reported including battery energy storage with their solar installation, about double the national average. Installers report a median payback period of eight years for solar systems with a battery, while standalone solar systems have a longer median payback period of about 10 years.

California was not the only state to cut rates for solar exports, a process known as net metering. Georgia, Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, and Wisconsin all noted an increase in installed systems not tied to a net metering agreement.

Top products

As for the top equipment brands in residential solar, SolarReviews surveyed installers based on five criteria of performance and quality, brand name reputation, product warranty, pricing, and product availability from distributors. Based on the five criteria, SolarReviews listed Qcells as the top performing panel brand.

Installers said the top five most-used panels were Qcells (53%), REC (41%), Canadian Solar (35%), Mission Solar (29%), and JinkoSolar (20%). About 19% of solar installers offer one panel brand, while the majority provide alternative options to meet the needs of their customers.

For inverters, the top five most-used were Enphase (62%), SolarEdge (43%), SMA (23%), Sol-Ark (21%), and Tesla (21%). Tesla made a notable leap up into the top five, gaining a larger market share than Fronius and Generac.

Enphase was also listed as the most commonly used battery energy storage provider, offered by 46% of installers. This was followed by Tesla (42%), SolarEdge (35%), FranklinWH (29%), and Fortress Power (18%). A sizeable market share was also held by SunPower, Generac, LG Energy Solution, and HomeGrid.

Maintenance

Given that solar is often a 25-year investment, post-installation services are a critical feature in a solar agreement. About 96% of installers have access to system monitoring, while 63% said they proactively check their customers’ installations at least once per quarter to ensure they are working.

The most common reasons for service, in order, were inverter hardware failures and replacement, inverter software and setup issues, battery software updates, communications and monitoring fixes, roof leaks, battery hardware failure or replacement, wiring issues, and broken or underperforming panels.

“Fortunately, when issues do occur, they are often covered by some type of warranty, leaving only 15% of cases where the customer is responsible for repair costs,” said SolarReviews.

Outlook

The residential solar industry looks to recover from a rocky 2023, where growth was slowed by high finance costs and unfavorable policy changes like the reduction of net metering rates.

“Some solar businesses are still reeling from the events of 2023. 22% of solar businesses say they have concerns that make them unsure whether they can stay in business in the coming six months,” said SolarReviews.

Despite this uncertainty, residential solar installers appear to have a good outlook for 2024. About 54% of surveyed installers said they expect to sell more solar in 2024, and an additional 23% said they think they will be able to maintain the same level of business next year.

Notably, surveyed installers listed pv magazine as the top trusted media platform for solar news and analysis, with 52% responding we are the preferred source. The marks the second year in a row as the most-trusted media source. We thank you for your continued readership.

Plug Power’s $1.6 billion loan guarantee for clean hydrogen facilities The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office announced a conditional commitment for loan guarantee to help finance construction of up to six facilities across several U.S. states to produce clean hydrogen using Plug Power’s own electrolyzer technology.

U.S. solar exceeds five million installations Over half of all U.S. solar installations have come online since the start of 2020 and over 25% have come online since the Inflation Reduction Act became law.

No ceiling on U.S. glass opportunity With PV module capacity ramping up, glass suppliers have been investing in new solar glass production capacity. As in India and China, new facilities are popping up in North America, with unique twists to ensure competitiveness, such as using recycled material.

‘We must push back on net billing’ With California’s NEM 3.0 legislation having gutted panel sales and Arizona heading a bevy of other US states preparing to reduce solar-export payments, it’s time the United States solar industry stepped up, for ourselves as well as our customers.

Faulty installations often to blame for battery fires The Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and German battery analysis specialist Twaice have jointly evaluated 26 battery fires between 2018 and 2023. They say that the diversity of components plays a critical role in igniting fires.

U.S. solar industry week in review pv magazine USA spotlights news stories of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

The U.S. multi-pronged approach to onshoring solar manufacturing The U.S. aims for a domestic solar supply chain, but the industry’s capacity to serve the early stages in solar manufacturing are minimal. Will its recent industrial policy efforts make a difference?

]]> https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/17/u-s-solar-industry-week-in-review-10/feed/ 0 104344 https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/09/sunrun-to-aid-california-in-its-electricity-imbalance-with-home-solar-and-battery-vpp/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/09/sunrun-to-aid-california-in-its-electricity-imbalance-with-home-solar-and-battery-vpp/#comments Thu, 09 May 2024 16:17:07 +0000 https://pv-magazine-usa.com/?p=104085 Over 16,000 Sunrun customers will supply the grid during peak electricity demand events.

Residential solar and energy storage provider Sunrun announced it has connected more than 16,200 California homes in a virtual power plant (VPP) to supply electricity during high-demand events in the summer.

A VPP is a virtual aggregation of small-scale, distributed energy resources (DERs) including PV, energy storage, electric vehicle chargers, and demand-responsive devices such as water heaters, thermostats, and appliances. VPP technology has shown immediate promise in replacing natural gas “peaker plants” on grids, offering additional capacity during times of peak electricity demand.

The VPP program is expected to reduce strain on the grid and provide power to local California communities to help prevent power emergencies. Customers in the program agree to enroll their battery-stored electricity in an energy dispatch schedule and are compensated for participation.

Last year, Sunrun’s VPP program, called Peak Power Rewards, supplied utility Pacific Gas & Electric up to 32 MW of power during evening peak demand hours from over 8,500 customer batteries. This summer, Sunrun is expected to roughly double enrollment and the capacity serving the grid.

This year’s VPP, called CalReady, will be run via the state’s Demand Side Grid Support program, administered by the California Energy Commission. The program comes as part of California’s Strategic Reliability Reserve, which aims to boost energy supply during heat waves, wildfires, and other extreme events.

(Read: “VPP preventing blackouts in Puerto Rico“)

“By sharing their clean solar power, they are making California’s grid more resilient for everyone. Sunrun’s CalReady is far and away the largest virtual power plant in the country and serves as a model for what the electric grid of the future should look like,” said Sunrun chief executive officer Mary Powell.

During the five months of this year’s CalReady program, Sunrun customers agree to enroll their battery to be tapped for energy dispatch up to 35 times over the summer.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) shared that as solar adoption grows in California, a grid imbalance described as the “duck curve” is deepening. The midday dip in net load is getting lower, making it more difficult for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to balance the grid.

The swing in demand for electricity from conventional power plants from midday to late evenings, when energy demand is still high but solar generation has dropped off, means that conventional power plants like natural gas-fired peaker plants must rapidly ramp up electricity production to meet demand. Coordinated VPP programs like Sunrun’s CalReady can help serve this demand, lessening the need for inefficient natural gas peaker plants.

“The benefit of Sunrun’s fleet of many thousand batteries is that they can be orchestrated in unison. It’s the scale, speed and capacity that makes Sunrun’s virtual power plants so valuable,” said Chris Rauscher, head of grid services, Sunrun.

Raucher said that the VPP behaves like a centralized power plant in that it is controlled and dispatched by a single entity. He said a VPP has the advantage of being a distributed resource spread across houses statewide, making it more flexible, resilient, and adaptable when compared to a single-location centralized power plant.

Over the last decade, the U.S. has spent more than $120 billion on 100 GW of new generation capacity, mainly for resource adequacy. A study by Boston-based consultancy Brattle Group estimates utilities could save $35 billion by 2033 by focusing on VPPs for peak demand capacity.

“By deploying grid assets more efficiently, an aggregation of distributed resources lowers the cost of power for everybody, especially VPP participants,” said Jigar Shah, the director of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loans Programs Office.

From pv magazine Global

Global PV capacity grew to 1.6 TW in 2023, up from 1.2 TW in 2022, according to the IEA-PVPS Snapshot of Global PV Markets 2024.

The analysts said that up to 446 GW of new PV systems were commissioned last year, largely driven by rapid growth in China, alongside an estimated 150 GW of modules in inventories throughout the world.

“After several years of tension on material and transport costs, module prices plummeted in a massively over-supplied market, maintaining the competitivity of PV even as electricity prices decreased after historical peaks in 2022,” said the IEA-PVPS.

The report said that the oversupply of PV modules last year “shed light on the difficulties to align production and demand in a very versatile environment.” It noted that while production capacities increased significantly in China, growth only happened in a limited number of countries beyond China.

“Uneven political support in some markets could also be attributed to the difficulties to develop local PV manufacturing facilities in an already inundated market,” the report said, explaining that significant drops in PV module prices due to increased inventory, oversupply and competitive environment among manufacturers also caused strain on local manufacturing.

Elsewhere in the report, the IEA-PVPS said that both the rooftop and utility-scale segments grew in 2023. Approximately 45% of new capacity was on rooftops, continuing gradual growth seen since 2018 as rooftop markets opened in new countries, while decreasing installation costs and higher consumption costs made it more accessible for residential investors. The report noted that prosumers are becoming more active market drivers across the world, while noting a move away from net metering as PV costs go down.

The number of countries with theoretical penetration rates above 10% doubled last year, to 18. Spain, the Netherlands, Chile and Greece led in this metric, but more populous countries such as Germany and Japan also passed 10% for the first time.

The distributed solar industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, with Ohm Analytics showing a more than a doubling of quarterly capacity since 2020. This growth was built atop residential solar, which itself had more than doubled its deployed capacity. However, 2023 witnessed a slowdown in distributed generation’s growth, falling to 8% compared to 2022, with the fourth quarter experiencing a 7% contraction.

As the residential sector’s doldrums from the fourth quarter extend into 2024, the industry is left to ponder the extent of the potential contraction and whether commercial, industrial, and community solar segments will play a larger role in sustaining the market.

The Ohm Analytics’ Annual 2023 DG Solar and Storage Report revealed that in recent history, the residential sector has been the growth engine for the smaller (residential, commercial, industrial, and community solar) sectors. (These sectors differ from the ‘utility’ sector, which is larger than all distributed sectors combined and connects to the wholesale electricity market.) In Q4 2023, it was growth in smaller commercial and industrial sectors at 9%, and community solar at 3%, that softened the impact of residential falling by 12%.

Last year’s decline in residential solar was driven by rising interest rates, which forced slower moving finance companies out of business, and California’s decision to hit the brakes on net metering incentives. The switch to NEM 3 in California initially led to an increase in residential deployments as many rushed to submit applications before the April 14, 2023 deadline.

The fourth quarter slowdown was uneven across the nation, with states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona, which rely heavily on loans, being most affected. In contrast, northeastern states with higher costs continued to grow, with some partially developed states like New York and New Jersey growing by 20%, and early growth states like Pennsylvania seeing an 80% expansion.

Despite the challenges, with California’s NEM 3, a silver lining is emerging: the expansion of energy storage. Ohm noted that residential storage grew by 22% for all of 2023, with Q4 2023 seeing a strong 66% increase. This growth aligns with the fall in price of energy storage battery cells and the massive global expansion in 2023.

Roth MKM, informed by various industry inputs including Ohm Analytics consultations, anticipates more weakness in the residential solar sector in 2024. Initially, Roth predicted a 12% residential decline, but in January, they revised this to a potential 15% drop due to further declines in California (which were then ranging from 30% to possibly 50%). Now, without a turnaround by May or June, Roth believes the residential solar sector could fall by 20 to 30% from its 6.5 GW of deployed capacity in 2023.

In 2023, every segment of solar in the United States saw year-over-year growth in installations. Cumulative solar capacity stood at 177 GW by the end of the year, and utility-scale solar alone added 22.5 GW, a record year.

Solar has been on an upswing across the nation, with more than half the states with 1 GW of total installed solar capacity.

The industry has been lifted in part by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a largest-ever spending package for climate and energy. The legislation contains numerous provisions to support the U.S. solar industry, among other clean energy technologies, including a long-term extension of the federal investment tax credit, significant domestic manufacturing incentives, labor standards, energy production tax credits and more.

Since passage of the IRA, over $240 billion has been invested in clean energy manufacturing and infrastructure projects, according to a White House report. This includes over $86 billion invested in nearly 300 new solar, wind, and battery energy storage projects.

Tracking this growth, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released rankings for the top five states in terms of solar deployment across sectors.

Ohio ranked fifth in solar deployment, increasing its installation totals year-over-year by 1,230%, with 1.3 GW installed. The state has 3 GW across 20 projects in the pipeline for development.

Colorado ranked within the top five for the first time since 2010, with 1.6 GW installed. This is nearly ten times the total installed in 2022.

Florida maintained its spot as number three in solar deployment for the fifth year straight, adding a record 3.2 GW in 2023. Over 50,000 residents installed rooftop solar on their homes last year, and nearly half of Florida’s 220,000 residential solar arrays were installed in the last two years.

California ranked second, adding 6.2 GW of new solar. However, California Public Utilities Commission have significantly damaged California’s rooftop solar sector. In total, the state’s solar market is expected to decline 36% across all market segments in 2024, said SEIA.

Texas has moved to the front for solar installations, adding 6.5 GW in 2023. The 15 GW added since 2021 was more than the entire solar cumulative total installed in the United States in 2019.

“From 2024-2034, Texas will lead the nation with nearly 100 GW of new solar capacity additions, outpacing the next closest state by a two-to-one margin,” said SEIA.

Among the leading sources of electricity, solar has the unique advantage of being able to be installed in a distributed fashion, integrating it with the built environment, preserving land and reducing transmission infrastructure needs. Rooftop residential solar can offer homeowners bill savings or price predictability in the long run, and when paired with a battery, offers a value-add of backup power and extreme weather resilience.

Environment America modeled the viable technical potential for rooftop solar in the United States, finding that it can serve 45% of U.S. electricity demand based on 2022 levels. In 2022, rooftop solar generated about 1.5% of the total electricity consumed.

Solar is also now the most cost-effective new generation source in most markets and most conditions in the United States. On average, new-build solar costs 29% less than the next-cheapest fossil fuel alternative, said a report from Ernst and Young.

For homeowners, rooftop solar can represent long-term bill savings and predictability. Environment America said though the initial investment can be substantial, most buyers can expect to break even in about eight to nine years and can expect to save between $20,000 to $96,000 on bills over the 25-year-plus life of the system.

Rooftop solar “has myriad benefits for the environment and consumers,” said Environment America. This includes reducing the need for dirty power plants and expensive transmission lines, providing lower costs, and can help to increase the grid’s resilience to extreme weather and other shocks.

Policy recommendations

Environment America made a series of policy recommendations for states and local governments to help tap the massive potential of U.S. rooftops in a recent report.

First, it recommends that states update their grid interconnection policies to align with best practices. It recommended referencing the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) Model Interconnection Procedures, 2023 edition, to support beneficial interconnection procedures.

For permitting, it recommends cities and counties to establish online automated permitting systems for small onsite solar project. SolarAPP+, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is a free online automated permitting software for local governments. Furthermore, states can support automated permitting by funding technical backup programs for local governments implementing the software, said the report.

Environment America said states can provide support for installation of solar on community buildings, like schools, libraries, and community centers. Nearly one in ten K-12 schools in the U.S. have rooftop solar. Working against its stated climate goals, California enacted a rulemaking decision in 2023 that made it more difficult for schools, renters, and other multi-meter properties to adopt solar.

It also recommended that states adopt policies that enable the creation of virtual power plants (VPP), which lets customers sell electricity from their solar-attached batteries to the grid during times of peak demand. VPPs help customers get a return on their solar investment, and they help squeeze out peak demand reserve natural gas plants, known as peaker plants, that are highly inefficient.

Some states, even ones with massive rooftop solar potential like Florida, do not enable customers to use power purchase agreements (PPA) or other third-party financed solar projects. This shrinks the potential market size, as PPA often offer a no-upfront cost installation, securing a predictable cost of electricity for the long run. PPAs work similarly to leases in their financial structure. Environment America recommends legislating PPA access state law to open a larger market.

A major recommendation from Environment America is the support of clear, long-term rules for net energy metering (NEM). NEM involves customers exporting solar production to the grid in exchange for credit on their utility bill. In California, NEM rates were cut in April 2023 by about 80%. The market has since cratered, with nearly 20,000 jobs lost and numerous installers declaring bankruptcy.

“States should take into account the full benefits of rooftop solar, including present and future climate benefits, land conservation and community resilience benefits, and reduction in the need for new transmission and distribution lines, when determining how solar power owners should be compensated for the electricity they supply to the grid,” said Environment America.

The organization said states sure ensure consistent and predictable compensation for the lifetime of a solar investment. Overly complex metering and compensation systems that change frequently lower consumer confidence and adoption. It also suggested utilities should not assess discriminatory fees on rooftop solar customers.

“Utilities must honor commitments they made to customers who installed solar panels in past years regarding how much they would be paid for solar energy they supply to the grid,” said the report.

Finally, Environment America suggests states should ensure access to rooftop solar for renters and in low-income communities. This would include supporting virtual net metering programs and community solar programs.

California has recently worked in direct contrast to these recommendations, damaging both virtual net metering and community solar efforts in its state, despite claims from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that it is concerned about equity in solar adoption.

The Massachusetts Solar Technical Assistance Retrofit (STAR) program provides technical and financial assistance for affordable housing organizations to adopt solar.

Researching the complex financial and technical aspects of solar projects for numerous multi-unit buildings can be a heavy lift for an already stretched housing agency staff. The program seeks to address this issue by acting as a guiding force through the decision-making process.

The program, administered by Boston branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Resonant Energy, and the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), has analyzed the portfolios of 44 affordable housing providers, encompassing more than 1,700 buildings.

Through its first three phases, affordable housing providers have installed or committed to a cumulative 7.9 MW of solar across nearly 200 rooftops. The projects represent more than $30 million in lifetime savings for the housing owners and reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 1,400 cars off the road.

One of the major hurdles in developing solar for housing authorities is the review and consent process with leaders and investors. STAR organizers worked directly with these parties, providing staff time and guidance to streamline the process.

“Without the expert assistance and flexible financing options through the STAR program, a shift of this magnitude would have been extremely difficult for us,” said Rafael Mares, executive director of The Neighborhood Developers (TND).

The STAR program supports housing providers in filing for tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act. Last fall, Resonant Energy helped clients submit 102 applications to the Department of Energy, representing $7.4 million in tax credit support if all are approved. Resonant Energy report that thus far, 68 of the 102 applications have been approved.

“2024 stands to be a watershed moment for solar and affordable housing,” said Isaac Baker, co-chief executive officer of Resonant Energy. “New state and federal resources are being rolled out that prioritize solar for affordable housing, making it easier for housing organizations to afford the upfront cost of solar and unlock meaningful savings for both the buildings’ and residents’ budgets.”

Statewide, Massachusetts applied for $250 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency’s $7 billion Solar For All program. About $65 million of the total is earmarked for affordable housing communities.

The EPA is expected to announce award decisions in March 2024. If the state is awarded, agencies will implement the funds in the following months.

The STAR program is financially supported from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s (MassCEC) EmPower Massachusetts Program, the Jampart Charitable Trust, and the Lauenstein Family Fund.

Phase four participating organizations included:

● Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA)
● Commonwealth Land Trust (CLT)
● HallKeen Management
● Harborlight Homes
● Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services (MHNHS)
● Peabody Properties
● Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH)
● Rural Development, Inc. (RDI)
● Supportive Living, Inc.
● Urban Edge
● Valley Community Development
● Way Finders

The 18^th edition of the EnergySage Intel: Solar & Storage Marketplace Report looks at pricing trends, equipment preferences, financing terms, consumer interest and more.

EnergySage, an online comparison-shopping marketplace for solar, provides solar quotes from local, vetted solar companies in 41 states and Washington DC. The marketplace report is compiled by assessing those quotes submitted by solar companies to shoppers throughout 2023, comparing the first half of the year to trends over the second half of the year.

A key finding is that despite inflation and increased financing fees, solar prices dropped for the first time since 2021, falling by 3.5% to $2.80 per watt. The report finds that the median price of $2.80 W in H2 2023 is in line with solar pricing from mid-2020, and  4.5% higher than the low point from summer 2021.

Recent price drops were offset by larger fees charged for lower interest rate loans. The most frequently quoted solar loan was a 25-year loan with a 3.99% interest rate. But the report found that the average fee on the most quoted loan product reached 47% of the cash project cost in the second half of the year.

Storage

Consumer interest in battery energy storage is up, with 61% of solar quotes on EnergySage including a battery in the second half of 2023—an increase of ten percentage points over the first half of 2023.

Quoted storage prices also dropped for the first time since EnergySage started tracking them in 2020, falling by 6.4% in the second half of the year. Previously the median price for batteries quoted on EnergySage increased during every six-month period, but that changed in second half of 2023. This drop in prices is driven by a 19% decrease in quoted storage prices in California, where the attachment rate has been 45% since NEM 3.0 went into effect. The report finds that in the first six months of 2023, Calif. had the lowest level of storage interest of any state on EnergySage.

The change in California’s net metering policy came after the original NEM helped the state become the leading rooftop solar market, achieving Governor Schwarzenegger’s million solar roofs initiative, and under NEM the state has since reached two million solar roofs. The Calif. residential solar market came to a screeching halt after the NEM 3.0 rulemaking decision lowered compensation for exported solar production by about 75%, thus making batteries an essential component of a residential solar project. Assemblymember Laura Friedman recently  introduced a bill calling for the CPUC to re-evaluate net metering.

As storage installations increased over the last three years, the specific batteries quoted and installed through EnergySage have evolved rapidly, yet a few brand choices remain on top. Enphase and Tesla are the most quoted, while FranklinWH jumped from 1% of quotes in H2 2022 to 11% of quotes in H2 2023.

Enphase Energy recently launched the new Enphase Energy System with the IQ Battery 5P, and the company reports that its system is optimized to support the new NEM 3.0 rules by enabling self-consumption and exporting energy at the appropriate times to create maximum value.

Tesla launched its latest battery, the Powerwall 3, last September. The FranklinWH integrated battery and control system was launched in 2022.

The drop in pricing is driven by Tesla and FranklinWH. These two brands were included in one-third of quotes and were priced similarly to each other at around $1,100/kWh-stored. Only one battery brand, LG Energy Solution, was included in more than 1% of quotes and priced below $1,000/kWh-stored on average in the second half of the year.

Seven out of 10 solar shoppers requested battery quotes on EnergySage throughout 2023. For the most part, very little separated the three drivers in the second half of 2023: main
financial savings, maximizing self-consumption, and backup power each accounted for more than 30% of consumer interest in storage.

The NEM 3.0 factor is evident in the Marketplace analysis of California shoppers because it wasn’t until H2 2023 when interest in energy storage spiked. In fact, prior to that Californians had the lowest interest in backup because of the favorable net metering rates. After rates were slashed by NEM 3.0, the state saw the fifth-highest storage interest rate in the country with four out of five EnergySage shoppers requesting storage quotes.

Pricing by state

EnergySage looked at Marketplace quotes for the second half of 2023 for the 10 states with the most cumulative solar electric capacity installed through the third quarter of 2023 based on data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie.

According to SEIA the top five solar states are: California, Florida, Texas, Colorado, and Nevada. All of the top five, with the exception of Colorado,  had median quoted prices below the national median price. In California half the  quotes on EnergySage were priced below $2.75 W in the second half of the year (up from 20% in H1), driven by companies trying to improve solar economics when NEM 3.0 became policy.

From pv magazine Global

The world could install up to 574 GW of new PV capacity this year, according to a new global PV outlook report from BloombergNEF. It said that new solar installations hit 444 GW in 2023, significantly surpassing its previous forecast of around 413 GW.

The research firm said it also expects new global PV installations to reach 627 GW in 2025 and 672 GW in 2026, and then grow further to 718 GW in 2027 and 722 GW in 2028. For 2029 and 2030, it predicts annual PV growth of 820 GW and 880 GW, respectively.

These figures diverge substantially from those released by Wood Mackenzie in January. It predicted flat annual average growth over the next eight years, bucking the trend of rapid growth over the last decade.

“The challenge in making forecasts is that if you keep predicting growth at current rates, you end up forecasting the entire world being covered with solar panels,” Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF, told pv magazine. “Our 2030 forecast is already over 6.7 TW, well above BNEF’s Net Zero Scenario and relatively comparable with global power generation capacity of 8.5 TW at the end of 2022.”

Chase said that Portugal and Greece could generate 50% more electricity from solar by 2030 than they did in 2022.

“At those levels, we will have negative feedback mechanisms, and those are what is really hard to predict,” she added. “Power will already be priced very low when the sun’s out, and storage isn’t free – so why would anyone build more solar, at least at historical rates of growth? That’s what BNEF’s regional analysts have to grapple with now that solar is not small anymore, and it’s no wonder that they can seem like cowards. Forecasting that the future will be dramatically unlike the past is always difficult.”

Among the leading sources of electricity, solar has the unique advantage of being able to be installed in a distributed fashion, integrating it with the built environment, preserving land and reducing transmission infrastructure needs. Rooftop residential solar can offer homeowners bill savings or price predictability in the long run, and when paired with a battery, offers a value-add of backup power and extreme weather resilience.

A report from Environment America, “Rooftop Solar on the Rise,” celebrated the roughly 10x growth that rooftop solar has undergone in the past decade, and laid out the long runway for growth that lies ahead.

Environment America modeled the viable technical potential for rooftop solar in the United States, finding that it can serve 45% of U.S. electricity demand based on 2022 levels. In 2022, rooftop solar generated about 1.5% of the total electricity consumed.

In 2002, only 147 GWh was generated by solar, by 2021, that figure increased to 5,959 GWh. As of the end of 2022, rooftop solar generation has swelled to 61,281 GWh, or 61 TWh. Over 3.9 million American households have opted to move forward with rooftop solar.

And yet, the report notes that the U.S. “has only scratched the surface” when it comes to tapping the potential of rooftops to generate local, clean electricity. Solar panels on small buildings, including homes, have the potential to add 926 TWh of generation. Methodology for arriving at this total can be found in the report.

Large, flat commercial and industrial buildings represent another development opportunity. Environment America said warehouses alone have the potential to host 185 TWh of generation each year, enough to power over 19 million U.S. homes. Over 100,000 large retail buildings across the U.S. could host enough power for the equivalent demand of another 8 million homes, said the report.

Why rooftops?

Rooftop solar “has myriad benefits for the environment and consumers,” said the report. This includes reducing the need for dirty power plants and expensive transmission lines, providing lower costs, and can help to increase the grid’s resilience to extreme weather and other shocks.

Distributed solar helps squeeze other emitting sources off the grid. Take the 1.4 GW Mystic Generating Station serving the ISO New England grid operator region. The natural gas plant used to be fired up in the winter to prevent blackouts, but the grid operator said increased solar capacity has made the grid reliable enough to shut Mystic down. Over 5.4 GW of solar, most of it rooftop, has helped enable the transition away from fossil fuels, even in the harsh New England winter.

Another environmental benefit of rooftop solar is the reduction of land use for energy development, sometimes referred to as “energy sprawl.” For each gigawatt of rooftop solar installed in lieu of utility-scale projects, over 5,200 acres of land are saved.

Further, rooftop solar can save the nation on rising transmission needs and costs.

“Because rooftop solar generates power that can be used on-site reduces the need for transmission from central generating stations, potentially saving states and municipalities time and money on their energy transitions,” said the report. “To reach renewable energy targets, some expansion of transmission infrastructure will be necessary, but maximizing the potential of rooftop solar can help to minimize the amount we need to build.”

Solar is also now the most cost-effective new generation source in most markets and most conditions in the United States. On average, new-build solar costs 29% less than the next-cheapest fossil fuel alternative.

For homeowners, rooftop solar represents long-term bill savings and predictability. Environment America said though the initial investment can be substantial, most buyers can expect to break even in about eight to nine years and can expect to save between $20,000 to $96,000 on bills over the 25-year-plus life of the system.

“Why pay for power from a distant plant spewing pollution when we can just soak up the sun on our rooftops?” Johanna Neumann, senior director, Environment America Research & Policy Center Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy.

In a follow-up article, pv magazine USA will review Environment America’s state-by-state evaluation of rooftop solar markets and its policy recommendations to support more installations.

Puerto Rico program to bring low-cost solar and batteries to 30,000 households Applications open February 22 for the DOE’s Solar Access Program for eligible single family homeowners in Puerto Rico.

Survey finds 26% of battery storage systems have fire detection and suppression issues The Clean Energy Associate’s survey also found 18% of the energy storage systems had issues with the thermal management system.

Reducing cost of residential solar financing with virtual power plants Solrite Energy says its new power purchase agreement has more agreeable finance terms due to the ability of distributed solar-plus-storage to make money as part of a virtual power plant.

California introduces bill to reevaluate rooftop solar net metering  Assemblymember Laura Friedman introduced a bill that would require the California Public Utilities Commission to consider the costs and benefits of rooftop solar and its non-energy benefits when designing net metering rates.

Solar panel glass plant planned for Georgia Solarcycle plans to invest an estimated $344 million in a solar glass manufacturing facility, bringing 600 new full-time jobs to Polk County and bolstering the U.S. solar supply chain.

Solrite Energy is rolling out a new finance package for residential solar-plus-storage, claiming its enhanced terms are directly tied to the benefits derived from virtual power plants (VPP).

Using the advanced technical capabilities of sonnen’s energy storage hardware, their power purchase agreement (PPA) aims to tap into the growing potential of VPPs, offering homeowners in selected regions a way to participate in energy markets.

According to a press release shared with pv magazine USA, Solrite Energy’s PPA is now accessible to homeowners in California, Puerto Rico and Texas. The company is planning expansions into New York, New England and Hawaii later this year. These regions offer opportunities for homeowners to integrate their residential solar and storage systems into the broader power grid. This integration occurs during periods of high demand, allowing homeowners to generate revenue by providing grid services.

For example, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the National Grid’s ConnectedSolutions program seeks to pay energy storage owners up to $400/kW during high grid demand events in Rhode Island, and $225 in Massachusetts. Similarly, Eversource, another major utility in Massachusetts, offers a similar program.

Sonnen recently updated its energy storage systems to be “NEM Proof,” specifically tailoring its technology to thrive under California’s net energy metering 3.0 electric rate environment. This update introduces an optimized time-of-use solution, designed to maximize value for homeowners by strategically managing energy storage and consumption. Solrite says homeowners will also have access to the battery’s backup features.

Solrite is actively recruiting contractors via its website to offer its finance and technical product to end users.

While Solrite states that its offering is a market-first, it’s likely that national residential solar companies like Sunrun and Sunnova have previously adjusted PPA pricing to reflect additional revenue streams. However, Solrite distinguishes itself as the first to explicitly market its PPA as more advantageous, directly attributing the improved pricing to revenues generated from VPPs.

Sonnen has been a pioneer in harnessing battery assets for power grid support via its “sonnen communities,” with the inaugural community established in 2015. By 2018, the company achieved prequalification from TenneT, enabling it to engage in Germany’s primary control energy market with its solar-plus-storage network.

In the United States, Vermont’s Green Mountain Power took the lead in utilizing distributed assets to aid the power grid. The utility reported that 500 distributed Tesla Powerwalls, alongside two larger energy storage facilities, collectively saved its customers $500,000 over the summer by alleviating demand during peak hours.

The Tesla Powerwalls, through a collaborative agreement between the utility and homeowners, are installed in private residences. This initiative has successfully expanded to include several thousand units.

In 2019, Sunrun was the first residential solar asset owner to win the right to earn revenue from their installations through a “solar as a service” model, when the company was awarded a contract to contribute grid services in the NEISO power grid region. This has opened up the possibility of offering customers enhanced contract terms, potentially sharing some earnings. In the fall of 2022, the asset network was turned on for the first time, leveraging around 5,000 residential solar-plus-storage systems, delivering over 1.8 GWh of energy during times of peak demand.

Following regulatory approval, Tesla launched its inaugural VPP in Texas, establishing networks that leverage solar energy and Powerwalls to support the grid.

During the summer of 2023, Tesla Powerwall participants in the company’s new VPP began seeing revenues during peak-demand periods, with some reporting total earnings over $400, triggered when electricity prices reached $4/kWh.

Sunnova’s initiative to launch a “microutility” in California, aimed at equipping neighborhoods with their own power and comprehensive grid services, was unfortunately not approved. However, such forward-thinking proposals hint at the transformative potential awaiting the energy sector’s future.

Residential solar installer Sunrun has partnered with utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) to enroll solar and energy storage customers in a program called Peak Power Rewards, which compensates customers for dispatching power during times of peak demand on the grid.

Sunrun enrolled 8,500 customer systems in California, operating the assets as a distributed network that forms a power grid. Under the program, the assets delivered an average of 27 MW of power during peak hours for over 90 days consecutively.

“PG&E was able to confidently rely on the renewing daily resource of Sunrun’s fleet of home solar and storage systems,” said Mary Powell, chief executive officer, Sunrun. “We are rapidly transitioning to a storage-first company and the results of this partnership highlight the unique capability that distributed power plants provide communities.”

The distributed solar and storage assets provided an instantaneous peak output of nearly 32 MW and frequently provided up to 30 MW of power, enough for more than 20,000 homes.

Sunrun said it managed the fleet of home batteries and provided power to PG&E in the same way a traditional centralized power plant would. However, the program was operational within six months of signing the contract with the utility, a timeframe that far outpaces the development cycle of utility-scale assets.

Enrolled batteries in the Peak Power Rewards program discharged energy to the grid from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. from August through October, a time of peak electricity demand in California. Customers received an upfront payment of $750 and a free smart thermostat for participating. Sunrun said that batteries enrolled in the program retain enough energy to meet personal, essential needs in the event of a power outage.

“Solar-plus-storage plays a significant role in California’s clean energy future and we’re proud of our customers who are leading the charge with their clean energy adoption. Every day, we’re looking at new and better ways to deliver for our hometowns while ensuring safety, reliability and resiliency for our customers,” said Patti Poppe, chief executive officer of PG&E Corporation.

PG&E has the most behind-the-meter solar installations in the nation attached to its grid, with approximately 820,000 customers connected adding roughly 8 GW of capacity to the grid. The utility said nearly 75,000 PG&E customers have connected energy storage systems to its grid, representing 670 MW of capacity.

“What is happening in California will soon need to be replicated across the country,” said Powell. “Residential solar-plus-storage systems networked together as distributed power plants are answering the demand call by providing flexible, on-demand power stabilization while also guarding against increasing rates.”

Despite adding new value to customers through battery aggregation programs, residential solar installers in California have been faced with increased challenges to acquiring new customers. High interest rates have worsened the return on investment for customers, and the move toward NEM 3.0 has altered the value of exported electricity. The California Solar and Storage Association recommended policy changes to improve market conditions and revive the state’s wounded behind-the-meter solar industry.

Most of the time when residential PV systems are designed, they are optimized within the limitations of the already-built roof. It is not often that roofs are designed to optimize PV production. But that is the exact opportunity that I get while building not your average dream home.

With years of experience in solar, I assumed that this would be one of the easiest parts of the process – especially for a one-story home with such a high roof surface area to square footage ratio. I thought that all I would need is the right azimuth and tilt. Well, I quickly learned that it’s a bit more complicated.

Luckily, the azimuth was straightforward since the lot is completely open without any obstructions. However, since most houses are designed to align with the road, completely ignoring this rule of thumb feels contrarian. At the same time, using solar orientation and the sun’s ecliptic feels both organic and instinctive to this process. It made me take a step back and wonder how society has distanced itself so much from the natural world that we use something as arbitrary and temporary as a road to orient something as important as our homes. But there was no time for philosophizing when there were important calculations and opportunity costs regarding the roof angle and energy production to consider.

When I was originally dreaming up the house design, I had envisioned a single-pitch roof, with an angle optimized for solar. Since Minnesota has a latitude of about 45°, that is typically the recommended angle for solar panels since that puts them horizontal to the sun during the equinox. But a roof with such a high angle introduces several setbacks. Such a steep roof adds extra volume, increasing build and system installation costs, and therefore the system payback period. Plus, it would create a very inaesthetic and unbalanced building design, with the north exterior wall being double the height of the south wall. In terms of power density, the higher angle creates more surface area, supporting a small C&I system at a 30 kW – much larger than I need.

That’s when we evaluated the clerestory roof, with two differently-angled sloping sides and a vertical, dividing wall. This roof type adds in some additional lighting and ventilation options, while also overcoming many of the challenges of the shed design. Unfortunately, it also creates some weight-bearing structural complications at such a high angle that make the build cost inefficient.

After that, we tried a saltbox roof, which is a pitched roof with unequal sides, one short and high and the other long and low. The thought around this design is that it creates a large surface for a power dense roof.

According to SolarEdge’s Designer tool, if the long, south-facing side were at 34°, I could fit a whopping 55 solar panels for a 22 kWp system to achieve 33 MWh of annual energy production. But this angle is significantly lower than the standard recommendation of 45°, meaning that the energy density would be compromised.

According to Chris Bunch, VP of design and engineering at Powur, the 45° recommendations is “only part of the equation. I think the more important thing is when is electricity going to be used. Is it mostly in the summer? Is mostly in the winter? What sort of energy is driving the heating in the winter and the cooling in the summer? And the anticipated electrical demand throughout the year is important.”

Unfortunately, without an electric bill to show energy usage patterns, this type of information is hard to know in a new build. And it can be even more difficult to estimate for a passive house that is specifically being designed to reduce energy demand. However, in general, houses in Minnesota have a higher energy load in the winter due to the extremely cold weather. And as I’m planning for the house to be all electric, with no gas connection, this will likely hold true. As we were contemplating options, other suggestions arose such as a flat roof or even a ground mount PV system.

But then lightning struck when I suggested turning the saltbox roof 180°, so that the short and high side of the roof would face the south. While that leads to less surface area at a higher angle of 40°, making it less power dense, it becomes more energy dense and better optimized for the higher energy demand in the winter.

With this new roof design, I can fit on a 12 kWp PV system with an annual yield of 18.6 MWh. While this would be 55% the size of the 22 kWp systems mentioned above, its yield would be 56% of the 34° roof and 59% of the 18° roof. And an added benefit of a steeper roof angle according to Bunch is that it can help with snow shedding.

With Minnesota being a standard net-metering incentive structure, this process was more straightforward than it would have been if I were building in a state with a more complex rate structure, such as time of use. As Carina Brockl, CRO of Aurora Solar noted, “Generally south-facing PV systems with less shade are going to do well, but certain net metering programs like the Net Billing Tariff in California actually favor a southwest orientation.”

The other benefit to designing the roof for optimal solar production per Bunch is the ability to plan for all the ventilation and plumbing to be on the north-facing side to both maximize system size and prevent any energy losses from shading.

Now that I have a roof to put over my head, I still need to decide on the components and appliances for energy production, consumption and potentially storage. I’ll be diving into the product choices and the different types of appliances, plus energy efficiency considerations further into the process.

Jessica Fishman is a strategic marketing leader with nearly 20 years’ experience, including seven years as head of global public and media relations at inverter maker SolarEdge. Passionate about addressing climate change by accelerating the clean energy transition, she has worked at leading renewables companies, building marketing and communications departments.

Read the first in the series Building not your average dream home. The second in the series on finding an architect can be viewed here. The third in the series on finding a builder can be viewed here.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released projections for solar and wind energy growth in its recent Short Term Energy Outlook report, showing strong growth in solar and moderate growth for wind.

EIA expects solar generation to grow 75% from 2023 to 2025. In 2023, the U.S. generated about 163 billion kWh, and EIA expects this to reach 286 billion kWh in 2025.

PV Intel data indicates that from January to October 2023, solar power accounted for 5.78% of U.S. electricity, an increase from 4.98% during the same period the previous year. This marks a 16% increase in solar power generation over the previous year.

Meanwhile wind power generation is expected to grow 11%, increasing from 430 billion kWh in 2023 to 476 billion kWh in 2025.

Meanwhile, EIA expects coal generation to decline from 665 billion kWh in 2023 to 548 billion kWh in 2025. Natural gas is expected to remain the largest source of U.S. electricity generation, with 1,700 billion kWh generated in 2024 and 2025. Both natural gas and nuclear power are expected to remain relatively flat in generation contribution over the next two years.

In total, the U.S. electric power sector produced 4,017 billion kWh. Renewable sources including solar, wind, hydroelectric power, biomass, and geothermal, accounted for 22% of the total. Renewable generation as a group passed total nuclear generation in 2021 and surpassed coal in 2022.

Large additions of new renewable energy capacity are driving this shift in generation mix. Solar developers are expected to increase the nation’s total operational capacity by 38%. Total solar capacity is expected to grow from 95 GW at the end of 2023 to 131 GW at the end of 2024.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts the deployment of 45 GWdc in utility-scale solar projects larger than one megawatt in 2024. This is projected increase to about 53 GWdc in 2025. Adding Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables conservative projections of 6 GW in residential solar and 2 GW in commercial projects, the total solar capacity expected for 2024 is 53.5 GW. Projected figures for 2025 suggest a potential total deployment of 65 GW of solar power.

With solar permitting one of the bottlenecks to the buildout of clean energy across the U.S., Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus (SolarApp+) is helping local communities streamline the process.

SolarApp+ was released in 2021 by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). The free web-based platform was developed for the purpose of lowering the costs and timeframe associated with solar permitting, and is said to cut about 12 days off the permitting process. The software has been approved for both solar photovoltaic systems and battery energy storage. 

“SolarAPP+ ensures solar projects meet code requirements, enhancing safety while significantly shortening cycle time and accelerating the trajectory towards our climate goals,” said Mark Rodriguez, executive director of the SolarAPP+ Foundation, which is responsible for SolarAPP+’s long-term stewardship.

When launched, the DOE set a goal of having 600 communities using SolarApp+ by 2023. And while actual use has fallen far short of that goal, the 160 communities that are using it have approved more than 32,800 projects, saving more than 33,000 hours of permitting staff time without sacrificing safety or code compliance.

“We are very proud of the impacts SolarAPP+ has had,” said Jeff Cook, SolarAPP+ Program Lead at NREL. “The rapid adoption by local governments across the country proves that safe, automated permitting is not only possible, but delivers immense benefits to local governments, homeowners,  and contractors. We encourage all communities to consider piloting SolarAPP+ to see what it can do for you.”

By accelerating the permitting process, SolarAPP+ is playing a role in helping the U.S. meet its goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035. Local governments can learn more about SolarApp+ here.

Small-scale solar best for environment but agrivoltaics may be the answer A lifecycle analysis finds that although it’s better for the environment to put solar on a roof,  mix of both is needed.

EV owners more likely to install rooftop solar on homes The NREL behavioral study analysis, funded by the DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, was based on a survey of 869 households in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Solar home sales: location and premium price MarketWatch studied Zillow listings to determine which regions of the U.S. have the highest number of solar-powered homes for sale per 100,000 people and how much more prospective buyers are paying for solar-powered residences across the country. 

Fortress Power debuts high-voltage, all-in-one residential battery Fortress Power’s Avalon High Voltage Energy Storage System combines a hybrid inverter, high-voltage battery, and a smart energy panel in an all-in-one, whole-home backup system.

BLM seeks public comment on 400 MW solar project near Las Vegas  Candela Renewables proposes to construct the 400 MWac Rough Hat Clark County Solar Project that will include energy storage of up to 200 MW.

Biden administration announces $623 million in EV charging grants The grants will fund community-level and major highway corridor EV charging projects.

The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that homeowners spend $25,000 installing residential solar systems, so it makes sense that more buyers are looking to purchase properties with solar panels already retrofitted. However, according to findings published in MarketWatch, even these homes can come at a premium.

To find out which regions of the U.S. have the highest number of solar-powered homes for sale per 100,000 people and how much prospective buyers are paying for solar-powered residences across the country, MarketWatch searched Zillow. Using the keyword “solar,” they assessed how many relevant home listings popped up in specific states and cities relative to the local population.

MarketWatch used each listing’s page views and price details to calculate the average interest in the property and determine how much more a buyer needs to pay for a solar-powered home:  

• In terms of cities, Las Vegas had the highest number of solar-powered homes for sale in the U.S. (287), while Goodyear, Ariz., had the highest number of solar-powered homes for sale per 100,000 people (58).
• Regarding states, California and Florida had the most solar-powered homes on the market at 6,014 residences and 2,852 residences, respectively. Hawaii and Nevada had the highest number of homes for sale per 100,000 people at 23 and 20 residences, respectively. 
• Regarding interest in purchasing a solar home, New Hampshire was the state with the highest number of views of solar home per day at 1,799. Irvine, Calif., attracted the highest number of views per day at 2,188. 
• For price, buyers of solar-powered homes in Kansas paid the highest premium in the country, at 91.15%. On the low end, buyers in California had a premium of 4.13%

MarketWatch attributes the high number of solar homes on the market in Las Vegas to the rapid growth rate of solar-powered developments in that area. Goodyear, Ariz., ranked high due to receiving 300 days of sunshine, making it ideal for solar, MarketWatch reports.

California had the highest number of solar-powered homes for sale at 6,014 listings, which MarketWatch also attributes to its regular exposure to the sun. Hawaii boasted the highest number of solar-powered homes on the market relative to the people at 23 listings per 100,000. The report authors state this is because its electricity costs are the highest in the nation.

The top nine U.S. cities that had the most interest in purchasing a solar-powered home were in California. These include properties in Irvine, Calif., which had 2,188 views per day, followed by Corona Calif., at 2,160 views and San Diego, Calif., at 2,151 views. MarketWatch states this is partly because of the rising costs of utilities in fast-growing cities. 

According to the study, buyers in Arkansas had the highest premium (91.5%) when purchasing a solar-powered home. Buyers in California pay an average 4.13% price premium on their solar-powered home, the lowest in the country. 

Owners of electric vehicles (EVs) are more likely to add solar panels to their homes, a new behavioral study analysis from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) concluded.

The study, funded by the DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office, was based on a survey of 869 households in the San Francisco Bay Area, first in 2018 and then revisited in 2022. It found that around a quarter of EV owners also own a solar photovoltaic system, while only 8% of people who didn’t own EVs had adopted distributed solar. 

EV owners might have a tendency to also install solar since solar panels could help offset the energy costs of charging their vehicles at home, Shivam Sharda, a computational research scientist at NREL’s Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences, and lead author of the study, said. 

“Both EVs and PVs have a complementary nature, which might play a pivotal role in energy systems resiliency, addressing concerns regarding grid stability and power management strategies,” added Sharda. 

On the flip side, the research found that owning solar panels could also influence whether a homeowner buys an EV, although that correlation is not as strong.  

As of 2021, 3.4% of light-duty vehicle sales in the U.S. represented EVs, and around 6% of homeowners had deployed rooftop solar. As more EVs make their way on to the roads, they will also add to electrical demand. In this context, solar energy could present an important solution. 

Two aspects that could encourage a consumer to adopt either solar or EVs, or both include being cognizant of the technologies, and being social enough to ask about them, the study determined. For instance, if someone has a friend or family member who owns a rooftop solar panel or EV, they become more educated about the technology and its pros and cons, thereby influencing their decisions, Sharda said. 

From a policy perspective, while governments currently incentivize the adoption of both EVs and rooftop solar, the study recommended implementing strategies that could accelerate the deployment of the two technologies jointly.

“Because EV owners are inclined to use PV anyway, such incentives might provide a push for EV owners to adopt solar technology much earlier than what is currently observed. How soon a household adopts cross-sectoral sustainable technologies will play an important role in achieving decarbonization goals,” NREL said. 

The study also highlighted the need for additional holistic surveys to better understand the nexus of transportation and residential energy use. 

A 2021 consumer report from SolarReviews found that an EV would cost about  $1,058 per year when using a public charger, but that costs drop to as little as $415 annually with home solar – compared to the $1,260 a year it costs to fuel a traditional, gas-powered car. The report compared a gas-powered Hyundai Kona with an all-electric one, and found that during a 13,500-mile year, the former would cost $1,260 to fuel, while the latter, when charged at home, could cost around $662 per year in California and $450 annually in a state like Florida. In fact, over a 25-year period, charging an EV with home solar could save the owner some $16,250, the study concluded. 

From pv magazine Spain

Although total global solar capacity will continue to increase rapidly over the next decade, the pace of installation growth will begin to slow in 2024, compared to rates seen in recent years.

According to the head of Wood Mackenzie’s global solar division, if the forecasts for 2023 are met, the average annual growth of PV installations from 2019 to this year will have been 28%, including a 56% increase in 2023 compared to 2022.

However, on average, the current pace will be maintained and there will be no annual growth from 2024 to 2028, which will include some years with contractions. Wood Mackenzie is forecasting 270 GW of new solar installations worldwide for this year, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects additions of 349 GW for 2023.

Global solar market growth follows the typical S-curve. In recent years, growth has increased rapidly at the steepest part of the curve. Starting in 2024, the sector will pass the inflection point, characterized by a slower growth pattern. The global solar market is still many times larger than it was a few years ago, but it is natural for an industry to follow this growth path as it matures.

Not all regions are currently at the same point on the S-curve. Africa and the Middle East, for example, have a long way to go before reaching their growth inflection points. Two large markets are driving this growth pattern on a global scale, however: Asia-Pacific, dominated by China, and Europe. It is worth remembering that any change of course in China has a strong impact on the world market since the country leads new capacity additions, with some 180 GW that will be connected this year.

What could affect this slowdown is the global commitment to the energy transition. On December 13, world governments meeting at the UN COP28 climate convention in Dubai agreed to what was described as a “historic” declaration, setting for the first time a target for the transition from fossil fuels. This objective establishes a change of course for the global energy system. Oil, gas and coal consumption continues to grow, although more slowly, and all three fuels reached new all-time highs in 2023. In addition, COP28 agreed to triple renewables by 2030.

Global coal demand will increase by 1.4% in 2023, exceeding 8.5 billion tons for the first time. While in the European Union and the United States consumption is expected to increase by around 20%, in India and China it will remain strong, with 8% and 5% respectively in 2023. By 2026, however, it is expected that global coal consumption will decrease by 2.3% compared to 2023 levels.

Renewable energy is also booming. According to Wood Mackenzie, global wind and solar energy production in 2023 is 55% higher than in 2020.

Climate change’s varied and often lethal manifestations pose a growing concern for our global civilization. As we face these escalating challenges, it’s crucial for our societies to prepare for more significant and complex hurdles ahead. Yet, amidst these daunting scenarios, a glimmer of hope emerges in the accelerating deployment of solar energy technology.

Global solar power deployments have been growing at a pace envisioned only the boldest technology futurists have been able to predict, such as those in the book, “The Singularity is Near,” by Ray Kurzweil. In the three years from 2021 through the end of 2023, installed solar capacity skyrocketed from 182 GW to a projected 413 GW. This growth trajectory represents an increase of more than 400% since 2017, nearly tripling since 2020, and more than doubling since 2021. The surge from 2022 to 2023 alone signifies an increase of over 50%.

Data from BloombergNEF confirms that this trend is exponential, most recently due to massive deployments in China. This growth is crucial for the global shift to clean energy, and various analyses suggest that such rates are now capable of mitigating the most severe impacts of climate change.

Recent assessments that indicated the energy transition was lagging are now being revisited in light of these developments. Released this summer, IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook report showed that the 191 GW added in 2022 fell short of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. The report called for significant increases, targeting “551 GW annually by 2030, and 615 GW annually by 2050.”

Yet, with projections of 413 GW in 2023 and an expected 500 to 600 GW in 2024, it appears these ambitious targets may not just be achievable, but surpassed.

This trend is also recognized by global energy authorities. Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, who has been known to underestimate the expansion of solar deployment, acknowledged:

Over the past two years, their global deployment has been fast enough to align fully with the rate envisaged in the IEA’s ambitious Pathway to Net Zero emissions by 2050.

The IEA now projects that to meet global climate goals, approximately 633 GW per year will be needed by 2030, a target that could be achieved as soon as next year.

Source: IEA

According to research from the Rocky Mountain Institute, “eight countries have already grown solar and wind generation faster than what’s needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C, proving that a rapid transition to renewable energy is possible.” According to their analysis, solar and wind are forecast to increase from approximately 12% of global electricity generation at the end of 2022, to over a third by 2030.

This analysis by the Rocky Mountain Institute was released before the massive surge in deployment in 2023.

The Overton Window

As these ambitious projections and advancements in solar technology shift the realm of what’s considered possible, we enter the domain of the Overton Window. This concept, often used to describe the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population, can also apply to the evolving perception of solar energy’s potential.

And, frankly, some of these projections are astounding to contemplate.

Longi Solar, the world’s largest solar module manufacturer, sees a potential 1 TW of solar deployed annually by 2030. China has already established the manufacturing capacity necessary to support such a significant volume.

Christian Breyer, Professor for Solar Economy at the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland, along with his team, has demonstrated the economic feasibility of a global energy market wholly reliant on renewable energy. Their research suggests that with an anticipated global installed capacity of around 63.38 TW, solar energy could constitute as much as 69% of the world’s primary energy supply by the midpoint of this century.

Currently, the world’s electricity generation capacity stands at around 9 TW, contributing about 20% of the total global primary energy.

In late 2022, at the Forum New Energy World, Breyer asked if it might be possible to install up to 3 TW of capacity a single year. He challenged the audience to consider whether such a target would be “crazy, realistic, necessary, or maybe even too low.”

However, the terminally optimistic futurists may actually be the ones grounded in empirical analysis, and they’re already asking a much wilder question: are we about to witness 3 TW of capacity deployed annually – by the end of this decade?

Source: Uwe Dahlmeier

Uwe Dahlmeier of DR Dahlmeier Financial Risk Management AG recently forecasted that by 2030, global solar deployments could exceed 14 TW, implying a doubling of capacity approximately every two years.

Dahlmeier explains, “Based on empirical evidence, the long-term global exponential trend for solar is unlikely to slow down before the end of the decade and probably not before 2034, if only due to the favorable prices of solar power from new systems.”

His team’s analysis outlines the expected yearly volumes to sustain this growth, starting from 1.69 TW at the end of 2023:

• 2024 – 0.6 TW
• 2025 – 0.83 TW
• 2026 – 1.12 TW
• 2027 – 1.53 TW
• 2028 – 2.08 TW
• 2029 – 2.82 TW
• 2030 – 3.84 TW

Breyer notes, “No single energy technology ever in history has grown as massively steeply as photovoltaics.”

Before dismissing these numbers as outlandish, remember: just one year ago, pv magazine USA editors thought that asking for 400 GW of solar for Christmas was overly ambitious. This Christmas, it’s already a realistic milestone.

The rooftop solar industry is no stranger to ups and downs, often referred to as the “solar coaster.” Despite these oscillations, the long-term story is that of growth.

In 2023, that growth continued, though more modestly than some years past. Wood Mackenzie reported a 24% growth in installations through the first three quarters of 2023. Supply chain constraints of 2022 eased, and California had a big surge in installations from customers looking to secure legacy NEM 2.0 rates. Below are four rooftop solar trends that pv magazine USA reported this year.

High interest rates

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to highs not seen in many years in an attempt to stamp down sharply rising inflation. This was a particular challenge to rooftop solar, as many companies rely on loans to provide solar equipment to their customers.

High interest rates put pressure on solar financiers to either raise interest rates on loans or assess upfront dealer fees. In both cases, these changes squeezed the value offered to customers, leading to a tough year for solar company stock valuations and a slowdown in installations.

High utility rates

Though financing a solar project has gotten more expensive, so too have utility rates, placing another factor in the “why you should go solar” bucket. In California, electricity rates have exploded over the past three years, far outpacing inflation. Another 13% utility rate hike is pegged for California in 2024.

This has led to a shift in thinking about the benefit of solar plus storage. While customers often focus on payback periods or return on investment (ROI), this can be exceedingly difficult to calculate under shifting assumptions of utility electric rates.

Instead, solar installers are focusing the discussion on solar plus batteries being a hedge against unpredictable electricity rates, which have continued to rise sharply nationwide. While solar and storage shoppers typically use a rule of thumb of about 3% to 4% annual rate increases from the utility company to estimate long-term savings, double-digit rate hikes are common now. Where will your electric rate be in 25 years?

Policy blunders

There have been numerous policy changes across the U.S., many of which have cut the value of net metering, or the process by which solar customers export excess solar generation to the grid in exchange for credits.

Net metering has been critical in launching U.S. rooftop solar, and while net metered solar rates need to account for the utility’s cost to operate transmission lines, solar advocates argue that cuts to net metered rates went down far too much, far too fast.

This prime example of this is in California, where the sudden slash of about 80% of net metering value led to an 80% drop in installations in the following months. The California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) said over 17,000 jobs have been lost as a result.

Virtual power plants

Rooftop solar is evolving. In many markets across the U.S., with net metering being actively being phased out, standalone solar arrays cannot capture the same value as they had in the past.

Home battery energy storage systems are increasingly being attached with rooftop solar to ensure homeowners can store and consume their locally produced clean energy, avoiding peak demand charges that occur in the afternoon.

However, solar-plus-battery systems can do more than just store and self-consume power in a day-to-night cycle. These distributed energy resources can work in concert, along with HVAC systems and home appliances, to smooth out demand across the grid, creating more stability in electricity markets, and eliminating the supply and demand imbalance phenomenon known as the “duck curve.”

Programs that coordinate these distributed resources are often referred to as virtual power plants (VPP). By participating in a VPP, rooftop solar and battery customers can leverage their resources and get paid by a VPP administrator.

In California, customers are paid up to $100 to $250 annually for enrolling their batteries in PG&E demand response programs. In Long Island, New York, PSEG customers are paid up to $6,250 upfront for enabling their battery to be leveraged by the utility during ten peak demand events throughout the year.

Looking ahead

In 2024, some of the heavy headwinds like high interest rates are expected to partially subside. Manufacturers and distributors will attempt to clear out excess channel inventories created by the dip in demand.

“I feel that 2024 will be a year of recovery,” said Raghu Belur, co-founder and chief of products at Enphase Energy in an interview with pv magazine USA. “I don’t see the market getting worse, but I don’t see it getting dramatically better. We won’t be back to the 2022-type growth. That will probably take an extra year. But 2024 you see things starting to turn around and slowly recover.”

Residential solar posted modest growth in installations in the United States through three quarters of 2023, growing 24% year-over-year, according to Wood Mackenzie’s latest market insight report. 

As supply chain constraints of 2022 improved through the year and Californians rushed to secure solar under a more lucrative rate structure before it transitioned to NEM 3.0 in April, residential solar posted growth. 

Wood Mackenzie warns the market to temper its expectations for 2024, though, as high interest rates persist, lowering residential solar demand. The firm expects the California NEM 2.0 backlog of orders to continue into early 2024, temporarily buoying installations figures before they take a dive. California represents roughly 40% of the U.S. residential solar market and has noted a sharp 80% drop off in installation orders following the transition to NEM 3.0. 

In Q3 2023, the residential solar segment installed 1.8 GW, growing 12% year-over-year and setting a new quarterly record for the nation. However, Arizona, Florida, and Texas, all major residential solar markets, experienced quarterly and annual declines in installed capacity in the third quarter. Installers are meeting these challenges by focusing on operational efficiencies or experimenting with pricing and product offering tweaks to survive the slowdown. 

While high interest rates and policy changes like those seen in California are pushing down the 2024 outlook for residential solar, Wood Mackenzie noted there are some tailwinds at play. 

“While high interest rates persist, the segment has some tailwinds, such as module oversupply resulting in lower pricing,” said Wood Mackenzie. “Coupled with increasing retail rates, installers can still provide customers with a compelling value proposition in some states. With third-party ownership (TPO) products less sensitive to interest rate increases than loans, installers also continue to report an increase in TPO installations.” 

Wood Mackenzie forecasts 13% growth in the residential solar market in 2023. However, looking ahead to 2024, the firm expects a 12% national contraction.  

“The residential solar market will recover in 2025 and grow at an average annual rate of 10% between 2025-2028 as growth picks up in emerging markets,” said Wood Mackenzie. 

Battery competition 

As the residential solar-plus-storage market grows, competition is increasing among battery vendors. Wood Mackenzie said that in Q3 2023, 11% of residential solar and 5% of non-residential solar systems were paired with storage. 

According to Wood Mackenzie, Tesla, LG and Enphase remain the big three battery vendors, holding 80% of the cumulative market from 2018 through Q3 2023. However, new entrants are beginning to leave their mark on market share. In 2018, the big three providers were installed on 96% of solar-plus-storage systems, but in 2023 they represented 65%. 

Energy equipment companies like SunPower, Generac, and SolarEdge have carved out spots among the top seven providers. FranklinWH ranks eighth in storage only two years after launching its first product for the sector. 

“The top five players in the residential solar-plus-storage ranking hold 59% of the market, while the top five players in the residential solar market hold just 24%,” said Max Issokson, research analyst, Wood Mackenzie. 

Building not your average dream home: Finding a builder  The interview process felt long and tedious and– at times– a bit like speed dating. But that is what is needed to find the right fit.

Carbon capture hubs could present solution for industrial emitters  There are more than 3,000 such carbon emitters in the country, collectively producing some 266 million metric tons of CO2 annually according to a report by the EFI Foundation and Horizon Climate Group.

Project finance management software for the energy transition  Critical to the growth in renewable energy development, spurred by the passage of the IRA, is seamless documentation and data management while managing complexity, mitigating risk and maximizing returns at scale. 

ASICS doubles the solar on Mississippi distribution center  The additional 1 MW of solar is projected to provide $100,000 in energy savings in the first year, with the environmental benefits of the combined systems estimated to offset the electricity of around 290 households annually.

Elevating U.S. energy security & reshaping domestic supply chains  Amidst the changing currents of U.S. energy policy and supply chain reform, the states of Nevada and Arkansas stand center stage in the development of lithium projects.

In the previous article in this series, I had spent a few months working with an architect on the first design stages of not your average dream home. This included positioning and azimuth of the home on the lot, a detailed interior layout, and other passivhaus considerations, such as exterior wall thickness, south-facing passive solar, air circulation, thermal mass, underground water cistern placement, and even an integrated indoor garden.

Now that I have these initial plans, since I am using a separate architect and builder, I am sharing them with builders to get quotes. Prior to the design process, I began searching for a builder through the Minnesota Green Path, which has a list of builders committed to energy-efficient residential home construction, including RESNET’s HERS (Home Energy Rating System) index and air exchange ratings.

I interviewed 13 builders from the Minnesota Green Path designated builder list. All of the builders were very knowledgeable on Minnesota’s Energy Code and often spoke about reducing the Air Changes per Hour (ACH), but many did not have the knowledge of or experience with the type of high-performance building principles that I am looking to achieve. For some builders, I needed to define the meaning of passivhaus. A German word, translated to passive house, that is a building practice of reducing energy demand (instead of offsetting it) through an airtight exterior, passive solar, thermal mass, and air exchange to maintain a comfortable temperature.

The interview process felt long and tedious and– at times– a bit like speed dating. But that is what is needed to find the right fit. As Justin Riddle from Paltrin recommends, “Interview different people and find what you think is a good fit for you at that moment. I always joke that it is a little bit like dating, you are about to get into a relationship with that company.” Riddle continued by explaining that a relationship with a builder will be a long-term one. While building may only take six months, the planning stages may take a year or more, and then there are questions post build for another few years.

During my first call with Riddle, I felt like I finally found my perfect builder match. He was the first builder who not only understood all the building practices that I wanted to achieve, but had implemented many of them. We ended up extending our thirty-minute phone call to an hour, geeking out about different types of energy efficiency and temperature control techniques – such a geothermal versus earth tubing.

Demonstrating his deep knowledge of sustainable building practices, Riddle explained “Some of the elements are the same wherever you are building, such as air quality, material choice or onsite power generation. In northern climates where the heating demand dominates, you can adjust the design to pick some passive solar heat via window sizing and glazing choice on the southern side.”

And being at the forefront of the sustainable building industry, Riddle noted that “there are lots of cool developments happening now where people are trying to advance materials, such as reducing the carbon footprint in concrete production, distribution models, and manufacturing methods using more modularity.”

Riddle, who has a PhD in Chemistry, is the founder and owner of Paltrin LLC, a boutique organization offering design-through-construction services, including energy analysis and mechanical design for custom home builds in the Twin Cities metro region.

“Our outcome is focused on delivering a home that our clients love. To do that we work with people wherever they are in their journey. Some people come to us with a blueprint and land, so we build a home for them. Others are more upstream from that so we get more involved in the design of the home and planning stages,” Riddle stated.

Previously in R&D at 3M for 14 years, Riddle transitioned into sustainable and energy efficient buildings after a chance encounter at a tradeshow when he learned about the USDA Biobased certification program. Now after seven years building sustainable homes, Riddle considers it his superpower where he can combine his formal scientific training with his love of construction to help people and society.

When it comes to sustainability and project scope, Riddle thinks about it on a continuum. “A sustainable home is working to minimize its ecological footprint, reduce operating costs, and provide a healthier, more environmentally responsible living space for its occupants. It’s about minimizing your impact now and in the future. This is typically achieved by working to minimize energy consumption, conserve water, use materials that are produced locally or with more renewable content, and to utilize renewable energy.”

During my first conversation with Riddle, I could tell he is as passionate as I am about high-performance buildings, and he believes that having this type of alignment between a builder’s motivation and clients is important. He also recommended a few certifications to ask about, including EnergyStar, Zero Energy Ready Home, and PHIUS (Passive House Institute US, Inc.) or PHI (Passivhaus Institut).

Out of the thirteen builders that I initially interviewed, four demonstrated some knowledge of the building practices I want to achieve so I’ve shared the preliminary plans from the architect with each of them, including Riddle. The quoting process for each is different, with all offering a square foot estimate for free and some also providing a more detailed quote based on subcontractor bids for free. Others have a fee of a few thousand dollars for the more detailed quote. While the free square foot estimate is nice to have, the detailed quote is necessary for the next step of understanding the budget and adjusting the design to fit the budget.

Riddle advised that the cost of building a sustainable home typically “does cost more upfront because you are likely selecting materials that are higher performing so they are more of a premium. In addition, there are generally more steps and details to pay attention to versus a code-built home, so there is more labor involved.” This can include working with municipalities and subcontractors who are not used to high-performance building practice and may require time and education. However, Riddle confirmed that the upfront cost tends to pay off in the long run, especially with higher inflation, which he said “seemed to surpass the cost difference of the sustainable features.”

With the quoting process from builders expected to take three to four weeks, I am eagerly waiting to hear back. In the meantime, I’ve been busy learning about soil health and regenerative farming with terra.do so that the house won’t just be net zero, but the land will be a carbon sink. Plus, I’ve been digging into the right roof angle and weighing a number of considerations that I’ll dive into in the next article.

Jessica Fishman is a strategic marketing professional with nearly 20 years’ experience, including seven years as head of global public and media relations at inverter maker SolarEdge. Passionate about addressing climate change by accelerating the clean energy transition, she has worked at leading renewables companies, building marketing and communications departments.

Read the first in the series Building not your average dream home.

BloombergNEF has released its updated solar market outlook for 2023, projecting that 413 GW of module capacity will be installed this year. This capacity is largely driven by China’s contribution of 240 GW, along with strong growth in many other global regions.

The quarterly update was provided via Bloomberg’s podcast “Switched On” in the episode, Solar supply glut crushes margins but buildout booming.

If the world does install 413 GW of solar, we will have witnessed a growth of over 58% from the 260 GW installed in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from the 183 GW installed in 2021. During this two year period, the world will have experienced 125% growth – indicating that a doubling of deployed annual capacity occurred in around one and a half years.

This capacity growth is driven by several factors. Foremost is China, which plays a dual role: by being expected to install 240 GW of capacity, and secondly, through its massive scaling of manufacturing capacity, which has driven the price of solar modules toward $0.10/W.

In the ‘Switched On’ podcast, Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF, shed light on the dichotomy in the solar industry. While solar capacity installation is surging worldwide, she pointed out that the financial side of solar panel manufacturing is still a tough business. According to Chase, even as manufacturing capacity expands significantly, profit margins for manufacturers are under severe pressure, with module assembly lines operating at only a 60% capacity factor.

Clean Energy Associates has projected that there will be 1 TW of new annual solar panel manufacturing capacity, particularly TOPCon solar cells, located in China alone by the end of 2024 – with over 800 GW of capacity in place as of now. This milestone of 1 TW in annual manufacturing capacity follows closely after the global deployment of solar modules surpassed 1 TW in the winter of 2022.

If our deployment pace is maintained, the world will be on track to reach its second terawatt of solar installations by 2024, achieving this in less than three years – a stark contrast to the approximately 40 years it took to reach the first terawatt.

Commenting on the low module pricing, Chase said:

Right now your standard solar module, in a free trade market, costs 12.8¢/watt. That’s below where anyone thought it would be. That’s below where the experience curve says it should be. I’m having real difficulty constructing the experience curve in a way that makes any sense. I am so surprised. I think it’s because I’ve been watching it for seventeen years, eighteen years now, that I am so surprised.

Globally, the low module pricing is facilitating more capacity installations. In 2022, the United States actually saw a slowdown in total volume deployed, partly due to high hardware costs. In China, these low prices have aided in driving wind and solar “megabases”, which boast capacities of up to 20 gigawatts.

Chase mentioned that in the U.S., high trade barriers and interconnection capacity have slowed installation volumes by increasing module pricing and delaying connections. However, the Inflation Reduction Act has provided support and is expected to have a broad market impact.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) passed a goal of installing solar panels on 250,000 rooftops in the metro D.C. area by 2030. The region includes D.C., Northern Viriginia, and parts of Maryland. Currently, there are about 72,000 rooftops that have solar panels installed, meaning that 178,000 more rooftops are targeted in the 2030 goal.

In 2020 MWCOG passed a climate and energy action plan to reduce emissions by 50% from 2005 levels. The climate plan also calls for about 2% of the region’s energy to come from local, distributed renewable energy sources like rooftop solar.

“It’s super ambitious, there’s no doubt about it,” said Robert W. Lazaro Jr., executive director for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission. “When you look at contributors to greenhouse gases, buildings are going to be [among] the biggest drivers.”

One of the initiatives in the region that is expected to help achieve the 250,000 target is Solar For All. The Department of Energy funds the program, which partners with organizations across the District to install solar on multi-family buildings. Program managers of Solar For All said participants should receive roughly 50% savings on their electricity bill for 15 years under the program.

The program is funded through the District’s Renewable Energy Development Fund. At the state level, Maryland’s community solar program has a low-income “carve-out,” meaning that about 125 megawatts (MW) of the total 418 MW statewide cap is set aside for projects focused on low- and moderate-income customers.

The D.C. area’s ambitious goal would represent about 24% of single-family homes adding rooftop solar, a level of market penetration only approached by Hawaii today. MWCOG’s energy procurement target also calls for a 10% compound annual growth rate in clean power purchases through 2030.

MWCOG’s climate action plan also recognizes the need for pairing intermittent generation sources like solar with energy storage. The 2030 goal establishes that roughly 10% of on-site solar installations will need to be paired with energy storage systems.

“COG will continue to work with its regional partners to evaluate project-level feasibility and cost-effectiveness of measures to meet the 2030 goals of reducing GHG emissions 50 percent below the 2005 levels,” said the climate action plan. “The next ten years of action will set the stage for the 2050 vision for achieving 80% [greenhouse gas] emission reduction and a resilient metropolitan Washington.”

For the solar industry in the United States, 2022 was a year of contrasting events. On one hand, the euphoria of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) overwhelmed all other industry dynamics, and is set to bolster the sector for decades. On the other hand, the total amount of solar power deployed in 2022 actually decreased compared to previous years.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released its National Survey Report of PV Power Applications in the United States of America (PVPS), providing a comprehensive overview of 2022.

According to a joint analysis by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association, approximately 21,127 MWdc of solar power was installed at utility-scale and distributed sites in 2022. This total included 5,959 MW of residential and 2,667 MW of commercial capacity. Cumulatively, 2022 brought the distributed volume to 51,627 MW and utility scale to 89,929 MW, for a total of 141,556 MW of installed solar generation capacity. However, there was no available data on off-grid solar installation volumes.

By the end of 2022, cumulative solar installations had reached 4,043,034 systems, including 3.9 million residential, more than 130,000 industrial, and nearly 4,000 utility-scale systems.

Despite these numbers, the year’s total installed capacity was disappointing. The report attributes this to several factors, noting that “module costs rose during 2022 because of inflation, trade uncertainty (including an investigation into circumvention of antidumping/countervailing duties and scrutiny of the supply chain to ensure compliance with forced-labor laws), high polysilicon costs, and state-level and national policy uncertainties.” These challenges were compounded by inflation, pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, and increased logistics and labor costs.

Nationally, system pricing saw a year-over-year increase in all market segments: residential up 7%, commercial up 2%, small centralized (fixed tilt) up 8%, and small centralized (one-axis) up 3%.

The report highlights that roughly 80% of utility-scale projects in 2022 were owned by third-party power plant operators, bringing the cumulative total to 86%. However, in states like Florida and Virginia, where regulations require utilities to own the assets, the ownership percentages are reversed.

Loans financed 70% of residential installations, while cash purchases accounted for 10%. The remaining 20% were under third-party ownership, involving companies like Sunrun and Sunnova.

The report also discusses various policy frameworks supporting solar power across the U.S., including feed-in tariffs, feed-in tariff premiums (above market price), capital subsidies, green certificates, renewable portfolio standards, income tax credits, net metering, net billing, collective self consumption, interconnection laws, PURPA, financing support, sustainable building requirements, and merchant facilitation measures.

Naturally, the most impactful support came from the implementation of the IRA. The report examines the IRA’s various incentives, such as the Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, 48C, Production Tax Credit, Investment Tax Credit, and others.

The report estimates the “business value” of the solar industry in the United States at $38.6 billion. This figure is derived from the average price of $3.06 per watt for the 8.6 GW of grid-connected distributed solar, amounting to $26.4 billion, and $0.97 per watt for the 12.5 GW of utility-scale capacity deployed, totaling $12.1 billion.

From pv magazine 11-2023

pv magazine: How would you describe the residential solar market segment in 2023?

Ethan Miller: I have been in this business for a couple of decades and this has been one of the most dynamic years that I have seen. There is a confluence of factors, such as the [Californian net-metering regime] NEM 2.0 sunset leading to a surge in installation and then the introduction of NEM 3.0, combined with climbing interest rates causing a slowdown. In addition, as the industry evolves nationwide, the value proposition of solar is changing throughout the country and is requiring a lot of adaptation throughout the entire value chain. At the same time, there is a long-term positive outlook with the Inflation Reduction Act providing the industry with strong tailwinds.

What can you tell me about the installation surge?

There was a big run-up in California that saw more contracts closed in the first four months of the year than would typically be completed in an entire year. But now there is a big reset period to get engagement, articulate the new value proposition, and to ensure equipment, technology, and software can support that. It was positive that we had the run-up in the first four months. Now it is important that companies can adapt so that they have the momentum to carry them through this transition.

Can you provide expectations for volume in the United States distributed market segment?

As the entire residential market has experienced, there has been a downturn in the second half of the year and almost every company has revised their outlook, and not upwards. That has the potential to sit with us for the first quarter or two of next year, and then the market could see a reset and start growing significantly again.

What about for Powur? What has been the trend for your business?

We are on a similar trajectory. We were successful in building up the Californian pipeline. In other markets we continue to see great business success, especially where there have been no major changes to net metering.

This rollercoaster of California, Texas, and Florida – which are the country’s largest markets – affects the success of the entire industry, including us. Luckily, our platform model is very elastic and allows us to get through this with a lot more grace than other companies.

With NEM 3.0, and in light of California having an outsized impact on the national market, there could be an uptick of residential energy storage. Is that your expectation?

These expectations are predominantly appropriate. The long view of what NEM 3.0 is doing is that it is pushing installations towards being 80% completed with storage attached – which is up from sub-20%, historically, in California.

At the end of the day that is prompting more investment in energy storage technology. There used to be just a couple of options available and now we have a lot more. This will exert downward pressure on prices. That shift is a great thing for the bigger picture. Every homeowner will ultimately want a battery – it is just a case of whether they can afford it.

Powur is playing what I feel is an interesting role, which is the professionalization of the distributed market segment – one that was populated by small, often family-run companies. There are a few models emerging, solar leasing itself is well established but some other companies that are acquiring smaller installers are trying to build them into a portfolio. Why is it that you think Powur’s model – as a service provider to support distributed solar companies – is an attractive one?

Solar has to achieve scale in all 50 states, all of which are very different solar markets. It is one of the most complex trades – dealing with rooftop work, electrical work – you are in someone’s home. I can’t think of one vertically integrated contractor that has been successful in solar on a national level.

Because of this complexity, it is going to take a partnership model that combines local knowledge backed by national expertise. It is too difficult to service all 50 states and every county with a vertically integrated approach and model. That’s because some services need to be customized to meet the local and individual needs while other aspects need to be standardized and scalable to ensure quality and speed.

That’s where Powur comes in. We try to bring to the table consistent design, quality, proposal tools that estimate production accurately while also staying agile at the local level. Our quality assurance and project management programs ensure that our local installation partners are doing it right every time.

Ideally this model will professionalize the industry in an elastic way that can flex up and down. This becomes even more important because we are nowhere close to a nice, stable market with national energy policies. There are going to be markets that pop up, go away, and if we can bring that professionalism to the table in a flexible way, then that is a good thing.

Agilitas Energy building 4.8 MW storage project in Con Edison footprint Under a ten-year contract, the non-wires project will discharge up to four hours of stored energy during the utility’s peak demand period.

New IRA rules expand access to community solar  The Inflation Reduction Act is opening the door to new business models that will dramatically accelerate the development of community solar and the benefits it provides to consumers, while also simplifying the process.  

Strategies to deploying solar in underserved communities  Clean Energy States Alliance, assesses eight approaches U.S. foundations are following to support the development of solar and solar-plus-storage projects for community-serving institutions.

Shoals posts 48% year-over-year growth in record quarter The electrical balance of systems company’s gross margins shrank, leading to a net loss of $9.8 million. It has an ongoing legal case in which it is seeking damages from a wire insulation provider.

Solar Decathlon announces 105 teams for 2024 Design Challenge  Representing 93 collegiate institutions, the teams will compete in designing high-performance, zero-energy buildings.

ReVision Energy to acquire Sunbug Solar, expanding Massachusetts footprint Once the acquisition is complete, Sunbug will operate under the ReVision brand, serving New England customers with all electric technology including solar, heat pumps, EV chargers, heat pump water heaters and battery storage.

California rooftop solar policy struggles serve as warning to nation In the pv magazine Roundtables US 2023 live event, four expert panelists shared their views on the post-NEM 3.0 California rooftop solar market, and how energy storage will need to play an increasingly important role.

Electriq Power Holdings, a provider of energy storage and management solutions, has launched a program in the city of Derby, Connecticut to help homeowners access solar-plus-battery solutions regardless of their socioeconomic status.

The program, dubbed PoweredUp Derby, is supported by the city and will contribute to lowering electricity costs and providing back-up power for participants during outages, according to the company. Under the program, homeowners can have a turnkey solar-plus-battery storage system installed in their homes without any upfront costs, income verification, credit score, or property lien requirements. Almost 3,000 homeowners in the city are eligible for the program.

“It gives customers, including those who are low-to-moderate income the ability to access clean, reliable energy whereas traditionally, to install a system like this, you’d have to pay upfront,” CEO Frank Magnotti told pv magazine USA. 

These systems are also compatible with virtual power plant programs and if needed, can be integrated with local programs, he added. 

Electriq Power calls these set-ups ‘Sustainable Community Networks’ (SCNs) and has deployed a number of them in California. This will be its first SCN in the New England region. Both these areas have very high electricity costs – in Connecticut, for example, the retail price of electricity is around 10 cents/kWh higher than the national average, and has risen 17% between 2015 and 2022 – which is one of the reasons the company has targeted them. 

That’s because solar-plus-battery storage systems can help homeowners save money – in part by storing demand when energy is cheap and plentiful, and then discharging it during peak demand periods, when electricity rates are high. Electriq Power estimates that the systems can help save up to 20% in electricity costs annually. 

Electriq Power’s partnership with the city of Derby will help residents lower electricity costs and strengthen their financial position, Roger Salway, the city’s economic director, agreed.

“This is a program that can help residents improve their life, and for us, that’s a win-win,” Salway added. 

Electriq Power is also actively pursuing additional SCN programs throughout New England, and “would welcome the opportunity to work with municipalities and community-based organizations within the area to help them accelerate their sustainability goals, while assisting residents with lowering their electricity bills and being prepared for power outages,” Magnotti said. 

In addition to being a source of back-up power, Electriq Power’s solar-plus-storage systems also have the ability to export power back to the grid. The battery storage component of the system is equipped with operational software that allows owners to participate in virtual power plant programs, Magnotti said, where their stored energy can be exported to the local electrical grid to help alleviate stress when demand is high, helping to prevent a power outage.

In March this year, Electriq Power entered into a multi-year agreement with a U.S.-based clean-energy company for financing estimated to be more than $300 million over 30 months. This funding was reportedly to support the deployment of SCNs in California, which Electriq Power views as a hedge against rising utility rates.