Midmarket Solar Policies in the United States: A Guide for Midsized Solar Customers
The midscale market for solar photovoltaics (PV) has not experienced the same high growth rate as residential- or utility-scale market segments in the past five years when solar PV deployment increased rapidly. Midscale solar can be defined as behind-the-meter solar PV between 50 kilowatts and 2 megawatts adopted by multi-housing residential, commercial, industrial, non-profit, and other entities. A number of challenges face the midscale segment, including difficulties in contracting, mismatch between tenant lease and PV financing terms, high transaction costs relative to project sizes, and inefficiencies in matching prospective projects with capital. The changing policy landscape across U.S. states provides both opportunities and challenges to midmarket solar. Some states, such as California, are expanding system capacity limits for policies such as net metering, thus enabling a wider range of customers to benefit from excess generation. A number of states and utilities are making changes to rate design to introduce new or higher user fees for solar customers or reduced tariffs for net metering, which decrease the value of solar generation. An understanding of these policies relative to project feasibility and economics is important for prospective customers to make informed decisions to adopt solar PV. This guide complements existing solar policymore »
- Authors:
- [1]; [1]; [1]; [1]; [1]; [1]
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1328358
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/TP-6A20-66905
-; soft costs; solar soft costs; balance of system; solar balance of system; solar policy; mid-market solar
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