A 3-MW neighborhood photo voltaic venture in Morris, Illinois. Summit Ridge Power
Greater than 4 million households had adopted rooftop photo voltaic in america by the top of 2023. Nonetheless, sure communities nonetheless face substantial obstacles to rooftop photo voltaic adoption, particularly households residing in multifamily housing, renters and low-income households. Group photo voltaic — the place a number of prospects purchase photo voltaic from a shared system — has emerged as a possible mannequin to increase photo voltaic entry to those underserved communities. Not like rooftop photo voltaic, neighborhood photo voltaic poses no particular obstacles to multifamily housing occupants or renters and neighborhood photo voltaic could also be extra economically accessible to low-income households.
In a new paper lately printed in Nature Power, researchers from the Berkeley Lab and the Nationwide Renewable Power Lab (NREL) consider the diploma to which neighborhood photo voltaic has expanded entry to photo voltaic adoption. For the primary time, the researchers mix household-level knowledge from Berkeley Lab’s “Monitoring the Solar” rooftop photo voltaic adopter knowledge set with knowledge compiled underneath NREL’s “Sharing the Solar” neighborhood photo voltaic analysis, in addition to extra neighborhood photo voltaic adopter knowledge collected for the research. The researchers statistically analyze the demographic traits of the 2 adopter teams to judge how effectively neighborhood photo voltaic has carried out in reaching communities underserved by the rooftop photo voltaic market. The evaluation gives early proof of the impacts of neighborhood photo voltaic on photo voltaic entry primarily based on historic knowledge.
The researchers attain two major conclusions.
First, the researchers conclude that neighborhood photo voltaic has successfully expanded photo voltaic entry to multifamily housing occupants, renters and low-income households. The information present that neighborhood photo voltaic adopters in 2023 had been about 6.1-times extra prone to dwell in multifamily buildings than rooftop photo voltaic adopters, 4.4-times extra prone to hire, and earn 23% much less annual revenue. These outcomes recommend that neighborhood photo voltaic has prolonged photo voltaic adoption to communities that may have in any other case struggled to undertake rooftop photo voltaic.
Second, the researchers present that these entry advantages have been pushed roughly evenly by variations in enterprise fashions and variations in coverage. The neighborhood photo voltaic enterprise mannequin has allowed households to undertake photo voltaic with out proudly owning a house or having unique entry to a rooftop, two circumstances that may pose substantial obstacles to rooftop photo voltaic adoption. Because of this, neighborhood photo voltaic can increase photo voltaic entry with out particular insurance policies to help such entry, particularly amongst multifamily constructing occupants and renters. Nonetheless, the researchers discover that coverage has augmented these entry advantages, significantly those who present focused help to assist low-income households undertake neighborhood photo voltaic. Statistical evaluation means that these kind of coverage helps clarify round two-thirds of the variations in revenue ranges between neighborhood and rooftop photo voltaic adopters, round 40% of variations in renter charges and round 20% of variations when it comes to multifamily housing.
Funding help was supplied by the U.S. Division of Power Photo voltaic Power Applied sciences Workplace as a part of the Photo voltaic Power Innovation Community Initiative.
Information merchandise from Berkeley Labs
