A recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report finds that streamlined city permitting practices can reduce the cost of installed PV systems by $0.27-$0.77 per watt, relative to cities with less favorable permitting standards. Development times can be shorted by an average of 24 days, under favorable permitting standards.

The U.S. solar market is increasingly becoming a central focus of global industry attention, but state-by-state differences in regulations, incentives, utilities, and financing structures introduce more complexities in comparison to other markets. As a result, it has long been difficult to track and understand the changing market dynamics for solar energy in the U.S.

In 2007, the U.S. solar energy industry saw a glimpse of a gigawatt future. There was signi?cant growth in the commercial and residential PV markets and a new utility-scale segment for PV emerged with the fastest growth of all segments representing over 15 percent of the annual U.S. installed PV capacity. The ?rst concentrating solar power plant was built in more than 15 years with dozens more utility-scale projects in the pipeline. The expansion of the solar water heating market continued. Thousands of U.S. jobs were created and billions of dollars were invested. And, the industry strengthened its presence in Washington and our united coalition support across the country.

The solar industry in the United States is at a turning point; the cost of PV hardware has declined substantially in recent years, placing new attention on reducing the balance of system (BOS) costs of solar that now contribute to a growing perce