U.S. residential solar installers are bracing for a slowdown this year as California, the sector's pioneer and biggest market, is days away from slashing a subsidy for panel owners that has underpinned more than a decade of explosive growth.
The policy change, years in the making, will reduce the money credited to rooftop solar owners for sending excess power into the grid, a reform adopted after critics successfully argued the perk is unfair to those without panels.
Solar companies say the move threatens California's efforts to decarbonize the grid by 2045 by slowing installations, while state regulators say the reform will shore up power reliability by adding new incentives for homeowners to buy batteries that store clean power on site.
California boasts 38% of the nation's residential solar capacity, buttressing the U.S. market's 40% surge in 2022, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group. More than 1.5 million Golden State homes have solar, state data show.
That makes the state a critical market for national installers like SunPower Corp and Sunrun Inc. They and others have noted a spike in California installations this year as consumers scrambled to get systems connected before the policy change on April 15.
Under the reform, Californians signed up to go solar will be compensated for power their systems send to the grid, at a rate based on what the utility spent to buy clean electricity elsewhere. Currently, solar owners receive credit at or near the higher full retail rate.
The change will push the time it takes the typical solar customer to see a payback from their investment to about nine years from the current three to five years, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
EnergySage, an online solar marketplace, told Reuters the number of buyers on its platform increased 500% in the first quarter, ahead of the policy's implementation.
No comments:
Post a Comment