Understanding Adoption of a Key Soft Cost Reduction Strategy: Modeling Administrative Choices Regarding Streamlined Solar Permitting (Final Technical Report)
In the U.S., the process by which residential rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system installations are permitted and inspected by an “authority having jurisdiction” (AHJ) and interconnected to the grid varies across the country. As the U.S. has roughly 23,000 AHJs and 3,000 utilities with varying degrees of local autonomy, permitting, inspection, and interconnection (PI&I) heterogeneity represents a significant “soft cost” barrier to the growth of the residential solar PV market. Burkhardt et al. (2015), for example, finds that variations in local permitting procedures alone can lead to differences in average residential PV prices of approximately $${$$$}$$0.14-$${$$$}$$0.18/W. When the authors considered jurisdictional variation in permitting plus regulatory procedures, that price differential grew to $${$$$}$$0.64-$${$$$}$$0.93/W between the least-favorable and most-favorable jurisdictions. The objective of this project was to determine suites of PI&I reforms that fit the preferences of AHJs and utilities nationwide, as mediated through the preferences of PV installers, with the hoped-for impact of significantly improving the consistency of PI&I for solar PV across the U.S. To accomplish this objective, the project team set out to design and implement survey instruments with embedded discrete choice experiments (DCEs) that used individual PI&I reforms as attributes, with levels informed by a detailed understanding of the PI&I reforms. The analysis of the surveys was to include both defined and latent class analysis of the survey results, in order to identify different sets of AHJs and utilities that would prefer different “mass customized” SSP practice combinations. Note that this project would also have advanced the social science by applying well-established choice analysis techniques to the novel setting of public administration.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- DOE Contract Number:
- EE0007663
- OSTI ID:
- 1617035
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-LBNL-07663
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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