The price of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems installed on homes and small businesses spans a wide range, and researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have published a new study that reveals the key market and system drivers for low-priced PV systems.

“Despite impressive recent cost reductions, installed prices for small-scale PV systems in the United States continue to show wide pricing differences depending on the location of the installation, the installer, the components of the system, and other factors,” said Berkeley Lab’s Ryan Wiser, a co-author of the study, explains.

“Our work seeks to pinpoint the characteristics of recently-installed PV systems at the lower end of the observed solar price range.”

According to Greg Nemet of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the lead author of the report, “we find that low-priced PV systems, those cheaper than 90 percent of other systems nationally, are more prevalent in local markets with fewer active installers, and are more likely to be installed by companies that have more county-level experience installing PV systems.”

Low-priced PV systems are more likely to be customer owned than leased

Nemet added: “Not surprisingly, low-priced PV systems are also associated with a variety of system characteristics. For example, such systems are more likely to be customer owned (vs. leased), be larger in size, and use lower-efficiency modules; and are less likely to use tracking, building-integrated PV modules, micro-inverters, and batteries.”

The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) says that 240 solar electric modules and seven inverters have been installed on a 73.2 kW ground-mount solar project located next to AMC’s Cardigan Lodge in Alexandria, N.H.

The grid-tied array was installed by ReVision Energy and is owned and operated by IGS Solar. Upon completion, the project is expected to generate approximately 87,000 kWh of solar electricity annually.

The system, which has an expected lifespan of 40 years, was financed through a power purchase agreement.
Through virtual net metering, Three Mile Island Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee also benefits from the solar array. Any excess power from the Cardigan array will be fed to the utility grid, and AMC will receive a credit for the extra power. AMC says it plans to share a portion of the credit with Three Mile Island Camp.

According to AMC, this new effort will help the club achieve its goal of reducing its total carbon footprint 80% by 2050. To date, AMC operates eight off-grid huts in New Hampshire’s White Mountains – all of which feature alternative energy systems, consisting mainly of solar applications.

In his 2016 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama made the case that job growth is once more on the rise. Nowhere is that more true than in the domestic solar energy industry, which grew nearly 12 times faster than the overall economy in 2015.

The solar industry expanded 20 percent over the previous year to employ a total of 209,000 people, according to a detailed census of solar jobs released this week by The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit. Those new solar opportunities amounted to a whopping 1.2 percent of all new jobs added to the U.S. economy last year.

“From a jobs perspective, the real selling point is that these are inherently local jobs that pay above the average national wage with an opportunity for mobility without significant amounts of training or education,” The Solar FoundationExecutive Director Andrea Luecke writes in an email.

The new data paint a picture of a headstrong industry sprinting forward, perhaps not sustainably so. More and more managers are reporting that it’s hard to find qualified applicants; overall, 24.2 percent of employers said it was “very difficult,” according to the census report. Solar job growth is expected to slow a bit, rising 14.7 percent as opposed to the 20 percent growth of this past year. But, Luecke notes, that projection was made before Congress extended the investment tax credit through 2021 in a massive year-end compromise. That newfound policy certainty will likely drive a higher rate of growth than the original projection.