California slashed the price of rooftop photo voltaic for patrons of its three largest utilities final yr — and installations of residential photo voltaic methods within the state have fallen to just about three-year lows since then.
But drawing agency conclusions about how the controversial net-metering coverage shift will form California’s rooftop photo voltaic market in the long run – and have an effect on grid-decarbonization and vitality targets – State fairness – is way more difficult than it seems.
Just ask Galen Barbose, employees scientist on the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Last week, he launched a report that compiled the newest information on California’s residential rooftop photo voltaic market, together with an information level that confirmed a marked decline in installations within the first three months of 2024.
Barbose additionally examines battery storage attachment charges, the distribution of photo voltaic adopters by geography and revenue, third-party possession, system metering, pricing, and about installer market. The purpose is revelation that“Initial empirical views of how the market has developed over the previous yr, confirming some expectations whereas additionally revealing many stunning surprises,” he wrote within the report.
however that“we have now to watch out about not overreaching from the information over this previous yr,” Barbose emphasised in an interview with Canary Media — as a result of that“it was wonderful final yr.”
A yr of twists and turns for California rooftop photo voltaic
There is an enormous rush to use and safe interconnections of rooftop photo voltaic methods to the grid originally of April 2023when legacy net-metering (not) tariff formally changed by that“net-billing tariff” (NBT) imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission on Pacific Gas prospects & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electricity.
That’s why installations spiked to document ranges all through the spring and summer time of 2023, whereas all of the tasks authorised underneath the outdated tariff have began. Installations underneath the legacy tariff continued even within the first quarter of 2024in keeping with LBNL information.
Supporters of CPUCThe determination to cut back charges for rooftop photo voltaic argues that California’s photo voltaic market stays sturdy — not as scorching because it was throughout final yr’s historic soar in installations.
“[T]he prices extra for methods put in earlier than April 15 drove a gold rush throughout the first three and a half months of 2023Severin Borenstein, head of the Energy Institute on the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and an opponent of the state’s earlier net-metering regime, wrote in a weblog put up final month. that“Many of these early-2023 patrons are prone to later-2023 patrons if not for the push to put in earlier than April 15 and lock in not 2.0 guidelines.”
But there’s additionally proof that the much less worthwhile economics of the net-billing tariff have significantly harm the continuing prospects for California rooftop photo voltaic installers. The price of installations underneath the brand new net-billing tariff has slowed down from historic rooftop photo voltaic set up charges, which averaged about 8,000 per thirty days within the first quarter of 2024. That’s a decrease price of rooftop photo voltaic installations than in any month underneath internet metering going again to May 2020in keeping with LBNLthis information.
In November, the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSA) reported that month-to-month photo voltaic gross sales – a extra anticipated information level than installations – fell 77 on 85 p.c between May and September final yr in comparison with the identical months of 2022.
The commerce group additionally warned that photo voltaic installers are anticipated to need to stop quickly 17,000 employees, or 22 share of the state’s rooftop photo voltaic workforce — a degree of job loss that“harking back to the Great Depression,” in keeping with Bernadette Del Chiaro, CALSAthe manager director.
LBNLThe report consists of the anticipated information to again it up CALSAdire predictions. One such metric is that“quote exercise” — requests for value quotes from prospects excited about photo voltaic set up.
Quote requests from on-line photo voltaic market EnergySage spiked earlier than April 2023then fell to these 60 share of historic ranges from 2019 on 2021. that“While the EnergySage market will not be totally consultant of the California market as a complete, the truth that quoting exercise has not meaningfully recovered is probably the clearest sign of a big and ongoing market decline, Barbose wrote in his report.
LBNL Also highlighted is the information that seems to help a trigger concern of CALSA — that the brand new net-billing system will harm small photo voltaic installers. According to the report, solely half of the halos 2,500 firms which have put in no less than one photo voltaic system up to now 12 months to finish a system underneath the brand new tariff construction.
