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Help Reduce PV Installation Soft Costs

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working to reduce the soft costs (non-hardware) associated with PV installation.  As part of this effort, they are collecting data from PV installers across the country who have installed residential or commericial systems in the first half of 2012.  The collected data will be used to help develop best practices in regulation and permitting, while allowing NREL to develop baseline models to guage progress and develop strategies going forward.  With recent data showing large gaps in soft costs between the US and Germany, this effort is critical to the industry's effort to bring installation costs down further.

Below you'll find links to a survey for companies who have completed residential installations in the first half of 2012, and those who have completed commerical installations.  Please complete both surveys if you have installed both residential and commericial PV systems.

The estimated time needed to complete each survey is approximately 10–15 minutes. 

The following information will be needed to complete the questions. All totals are for the first half of 2012 (Q1 and Q2, 2012):

  • Number of systems and megawatts installed
  • Total cost of customer acquisition activities
  • Total marketing budget
  • Total cost of system design
  • Average labor hours spent per installation on permitting and interconnection
  • Permitting methods and costs

Data collected in this survey is strictly confidential, will not be disclosed to any third party, and will only be seen by NREL staff to compile the report. Providing company information is optional, and public presentation of this analysis will use only summary-level data and will not identify individual respondents or firms.

Please direct any questions or requests for assistance to [email protected].

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