Solar Industry Celebrates DOE’s Announcements at Solar Power International
WASHINGTON, D.C. - At Solar Power International, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it will be expanding the SunShot Initiative following the news that the solar industry has already achieved the program’s 2020 utility-scale solar cost target. Following is a statement from Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA):
SEIA Applauds Efforts by DOE to Expand Solar Deployment
As part of its ongoing efforts to make solar cost competitive with other forms of electricity, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SunShot Initiative announced today that it will provide $32 million in new funding opportunities to help spur additional solar development nationwide.
Softer Solar Landings: Options to Avoid the Investment Tax Credit Cliff
Federal tax policies have been an important driver for solar’s recent remarkable growth, but without action during the 114th Congress, the 30-percent investment tax credit (ITC) for solar and other clean energy technologies will expire at the end of 2016. This policy brief estimates the impacts that current law would have on the solar industry.
Selling Into the Sun: Price Premium Analysis of a Multi-State Dataset of Solar Homes
Capturing the value that solar photovoltaic (PV) systems may add to home sales transactions is increasingly important. This study enhances the PV-home-valuation literature by more than doubling the number of PV home sales analyzed (22,822 homes in total, 3,951 of which are PV) and examining transactions in eight states that span the years 2002–2013.
Deconstructing Solar Photovoltaic Pricing: The Role of Market Structure, Technology and Policy
In the report, a team of researchers from Yale University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Texas-Austin, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory empirically examined heterogeneity in PV prices in the United States.
Bridges to New Solar Business Models: Opportunities to Increase and Capture the Value of Distributed Solar Photovoltaics
In this report, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, investigates opportunities to optimize and demonstrate DPV’s value as it is integrated into the grid to utilities, customers, and solar companies alike.
Photovoltaic System Pricing Trends
With significant variance in estimates of cost and price within the solar market, DOE's Sunshot Initiative with scientists from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkley National Labs, have released their report that seeks to address these differences.
Rethinking Standby & Fixed Cost Charges: Regulatory and Rate Design Pathways to Deeper Solar PV Cost Reductions
Utilities have taken on the practice of applying standby and fixed cost charges specific to solar PV for customers choosing to go solar as a means to recover costs resulting from net energy metering (NEM). These charges are not the most efficient or best means for utilities to recover costs and this report finds that an integrated approach that includes the items below will allow for both effective utility cost recovery and minimal impact on the U.S. PV market.
How Much Do Local Regulations Matter? Exploring the Impact of Permitting and Local Regulatory Processes on PV Prices in the United States
While PV modules and other hardware costs have dropped significantly over recent years, non-hardware soft costs have also fallen, but not nearly as sharply. This research report, authored by experts from Yale University, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin and the US Department of Energy, focuses on the impacts of city-level permitting and other regulatory processes on residential PV prices in the US. Key Findings: