The costs of PV modules and other hardware have declined rapidly over the last decade, primarily due to technology improvements and manufacturing scale. On the other hand, non-hardware "soft" costs have not dropped as rapidly, and now comprise the majority of total costs for residential PV systems. This paper examines the impacts of city-level permitting and other local regulatory processes in the U.S. by combining data from two local regulatory process efficiency scores with the largest dataset of installed U.S. PV prices. Based on analysis, the findings indicate that variations in local permitting procedures can lead to differences in average residential PV prices of approximately $0.18/W between the jurisdictions with the most-onerous and most-favorable permitting procedures. For a typical 5-kW residential PV installation, this equates to a $700 (2.2%) difference in system costs between jurisdictions with scores in the middle 90 percent of the range. Moreover, when considering variations not only in permitting practices, but also in other local regulatory procedures, price differences grow to $0.64-0.93/W. For a typical 5-kW residential PV installation, these results correspond to a price impact of at least $2500 (8%) between jurisdictions with scores in the middle 90 percent of the range.
| Date | September 2014 |
| Topic | Financing, Incentives and Market Analysis; Planning, Zoning, Permitting & Interconnection |
| Subprogram | Soft Costs |
| Author | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |