Photovoltaic Incentive Design Handbook

Technical Report · Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 EST 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/897437· OSTI ID:897437

Hoff, T E

Investments in customer-owned grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) energy systems are growing at a steady pace. This is due, in part, to the availability of attractive economic incentives offered by public state agencies and utilities. In the United States, these incentives have largely been upfront lump payments tied to the system capacity rating. While capacity-based ''buydowns'' have stimulated the domestic PV market, they have been criticized for subsidizing systems with potentially poor energy performance. As a result, the industry has been forced to consider alternative incentive structures, particularly ones that pay based on long-term measured performance. The industry, however, lacks consensus in the debate over the tradeoffs between upfront incentive payments versus longer-term payments for energy delivery. This handbook is designed for agencies and utilities that offer or intend to offer incentive programs for customer-owned PV systems. Its purpose is to help select, design, and implement incentive programs that best meet programmatic goals. The handbook begins with a discussion of the various available incentive structures and then provides qualitative and quantitative tools necessary to design the most appropriate incentive structure. It concludes with program administration considerations.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-99-GO10337
• OSTI ID: 897437
• Report Number(s): NREL/SR-640-40845; ADC-6-66286-01; TRN: US200705%%65
• Resource Relation: Related Information: Work performed by Clean Power Research, Napa, California
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
AVAILABILITY
CAPACITY
DESIGN
ECONOMICS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
MANUALS
MARKET
PERFORMANCE
CLEAN POWER RESEARCH
SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGEIS PROGRAM
SOLAR
PV
PHOTOVOLTAICS
PERFORMANCE BASED INCENTIVE
PBI
EXPECTED PERFORMANCE BASED BUYDOWN
EPBB
PV INCENTIVES
UTILITIES
INCENTIVE PROGRAMS
CUSTOMERS
CALIFORNIA SOLAR INITIATIVE
MARKET DEMAND
GREEN TAGS
NET METERING
Energy Analysis