Characterizing local rooftop solar adoption inequity in the US
Abstract
Abstract Residential rooftop solar is slated to play a significant role in the changing US electric grid in the coming decades. However, concerns have emerged that the benefits of rooftop solar deployment are inequitably distributed across demographic groups. Previous work has highlighted inequity in national solar adopter deployment and income trends. We leverage a dataset of US solar adopter household income estimates—unique in its size and resolution—to analyze differences in adoption equity at the local level and identify those conditions that yield more equitable solar adoption, with implications for policy strategies to reduce inequities in solar adoption. The solar inequities observed at the national and state levels also exist at more granular levels, but not uniformly so; some US census tracts exhibit less solar inequity than others. Some demographic, solar system, and market characteristics robustly lead to more equitable solar adoption. Our findings suggest that while solar adoption inequity is frequently attributed to the relatively high costs of solar adoption, costs may become less relevant as solar prices decline. Results also indicate that racial diversity and education levels affect solar adoption patterns at a local level. Finally, we find that solar adoption is more equitable in census tracts served bymore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1846716
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1842894; OSTI ID: 1860232
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Volume: 17 Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; energy equity; energy policy; rooftop solar; just transitions
Citation Formats
Darghouth, Naïm R., O’Shaughnessy, Eric, Forrester, Sydney, and Barbose, Galen. Characterizing local rooftop solar adoption inequity in the US. United Kingdom: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc.
Darghouth, Naïm R., O’Shaughnessy, Eric, Forrester, Sydney, & Barbose, Galen. Characterizing local rooftop solar adoption inequity in the US. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc
Darghouth, Naïm R., O’Shaughnessy, Eric, Forrester, Sydney, and Barbose, Galen. Fri .
"Characterizing local rooftop solar adoption inequity in the US". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc.
@article{osti_1846716,
title = {Characterizing local rooftop solar adoption inequity in the US},
author = {Darghouth, Naïm R. and O’Shaughnessy, Eric and Forrester, Sydney and Barbose, Galen},
abstractNote = {Abstract Residential rooftop solar is slated to play a significant role in the changing US electric grid in the coming decades. However, concerns have emerged that the benefits of rooftop solar deployment are inequitably distributed across demographic groups. Previous work has highlighted inequity in national solar adopter deployment and income trends. We leverage a dataset of US solar adopter household income estimates—unique in its size and resolution—to analyze differences in adoption equity at the local level and identify those conditions that yield more equitable solar adoption, with implications for policy strategies to reduce inequities in solar adoption. The solar inequities observed at the national and state levels also exist at more granular levels, but not uniformly so; some US census tracts exhibit less solar inequity than others. Some demographic, solar system, and market characteristics robustly lead to more equitable solar adoption. Our findings suggest that while solar adoption inequity is frequently attributed to the relatively high costs of solar adoption, costs may become less relevant as solar prices decline. Results also indicate that racial diversity and education levels affect solar adoption patterns at a local level. Finally, we find that solar adoption is more equitable in census tracts served by specific types of installers. Future research and policy can explore ways to leverage these findings to accelerate the transition to equitable solar adoption.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
number = 3,
volume = 17,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Fri Feb 25 00:00:00 EST 2022},
month = {Fri Feb 25 00:00:00 EST 2022}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4fdc
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition
journal, June 2020
- Carley, Sanya; Konisky, David M.
- Nature Energy, Vol. 5, Issue 8
DeepSolar: A Machine Learning Framework to Efficiently Construct a Solar Deployment Database in the United States
journal, December 2018
- Yu, Jiafan; Wang, Zhecheng; Majumdar, Arun
- Joule, Vol. 2, Issue 12
Recognition of and response to energy poverty in the United States
journal, March 2020
- Bednar, Dominic J.; Reames, Tony G.
- Nature Energy, Vol. 5, Issue 6
The Effects of Data Aggregation in Statistical Analysis
journal, October 1976
- Clark, W. A. V.; Avery, Karen L.
- Geographical Analysis, Vol. 8, Issue 4
Split Incentives in Residential Energy Consumption
journal, April 2012
- Gillingham, Kenneth; Harding, Matthew; Rapson, David
- The Energy Journal, Vol. 33, Issue 2
Policy options for the split incentive: Increasing energy efficiency for low-income renters
journal, September 2012
- Bird, Stephen; Hernández, Diana
- Energy Policy, Vol. 48
The persistence of high energy burdens: A bibliometric analysis of vulnerability, poverty, and exclusion in the United States
journal, December 2020
- Brown, Marilyn A.; Soni, Anmol; Doshi, Ameet D.
- Energy Research & Social Science, Vol. 70
The Efficiency and Distributional Effects of Alternative Residential Electricity Rate Designs
journal, January 2020
- Burger, Scott P.; Knittel, Christopher R.; Perez-Arriaga, Ignacio J.
- The Energy Journal, Vol. 41, Issue 1
Toward a more productive discourse on rooftop solar and energy justice
journal, October 2021
- O’Shaughnessy, Eric
- Joule, Vol. 5, Issue 10
Use of Census-based Aggregate Variables to Proxy for Socioeconomic Group: Evidence from National Samples
journal, September 1998
- Geronimus, A. T.; Bound, J.
- American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 148, Issue 5
Consumption Inequality
journal, May 2016
- Attanasio, Orazio P.; Pistaferri, Luigi
- Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 30, Issue 2
Cross subsidies across electricity network users from renewable self-consumption
journal, August 2019
- Clastres, Cédric; Percebois, Jacques; Rebenaque, Olivier
- Utilities Policy, Vol. 59
Disparities in rooftop photovoltaics deployment in the United States by race and ethnicity
journal, January 2019
- Sunter, Deborah A.; Castellanos, Sergio; Kammen, Daniel M.
- Nature Sustainability, Vol. 2, Issue 1
Evaluating data stability in aggregation structures across spatial scales: revisiting the modifiable areal unit problem
journal, October 2015
- Nelson, Jonathan K.; Brewer, Cynthia A.
- Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 44, Issue 1
The Distributional Effects of US Clean Energy Tax Credits
journal, January 2016
- Borenstein, Severin; Davis, Lucas W.
- Tax Policy and the Economy, Vol. 30, Issue 1
Deconstructing Solar Photovoltaic Pricing
journal, July 2016
- Gillingham, Kenneth; Deng, Hao; Wiser, Ryan
- The Energy Journal, Vol. 37, Issue 3
Redefining the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem Within Spatial Econometrics, the Case of the Aggregation Problem
journal, September 2014
- Pietrzak, Michał Bernard
- Equilibrium, Vol. 9, Issue 3
Exploring Residential Rooftop Solar Potential in the United States by Race and Ethnicity
journal, June 2021
- Reames, Tony G.
- Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, Vol. 3
Distributed solar and environmental justice: Exploring the demographic and socio-economic trends of residential PV adoption in California
journal, November 2019
- Lukanov, Boris R.; Krieger, Elena M.
- Energy Policy, Vol. 134
The impact of policies and business models on income equity in rooftop solar adoption
journal, November 2020
- O’Shaughnessy, Eric; Barbose, Galen; Wiser, Ryan
- Nature Energy, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Income Inequality and Income Segregation
journal, January 2011
- Reardon, Sean F.; Bischoff, Kendra
- American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 116, Issue 4
The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective
journal, August 2013
- Alvaredo, Facundo; Atkinson, Anthony B.; Piketty, Thomas
- Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 27, Issue 3
Segregation by race and income in the United States 1970–2010
journal, November 2016
- Intrator, Jake; Tannen, Jonathan; Massey, Douglas S.
- Social Science Research, Vol. 60
Private Net Benefits of Residential Solar PV: The Role of Electricity Tariffs, Tax Incentives, and Rebates
journal, September 2017
- Borenstein, Severin
- Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Vol. 4, Issue S1
The distributional impacts of U.S. energy policy
journal, June 2019
- Metcalf, Gilbert E.
- Energy Policy, Vol. 129
Income-targeted marketing as a supply-side barrier to low-income solar adoption
journal, October 2021
- O'Shaughnessy, Eric; Barbose, Galen; Wiser, Ryan
- iScience, Vol. 24, Issue 10
Spatial disaggregation clarifies the inequity in distributional outcomes of household solar PV installation
journal, May 2019
- Tidemann, Carl; Engerer, Nicholas; Markham, Francis
- Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Vol. 11, Issue 3