United States Residential Solar Systems See Growth in Size, Decline in Price

• An annual solar report launched by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LNBL), Tracking the Sun, has made essential monitorings about the residential solar systems in the US. The report records the trends in the US market for near 2.5 million systems mounted in 2021 year-end, along with the preliminary data for the initial half of 2022.

Increase in Size Growth

The report finds that residential solar systems in the US are growing as battery attachment rates witness an increase. At the same time, the mean installed price of all sort of PV projects have actually fallen yet once more. This drop, nevertheless, is marginal.

For residential PV systems, the median last year touched 7.0 kW.

" The majority of [non-residential systems] are reasonably small, with a mean of just 33kW in 2021, however about 20% were larger than 150kW, as well as the typical size amongst all non-residential systems was roughly 250kW," read the report.

Module Power Electronics

Module degree power electronics, including microinverters or DC optimisers, have actually proceeded the fad of expanding their share: they denote 94% of residential systems, 81% of tiny (< 100kW) non-residential systems as well as 36% of large non-residential systems (≥ 100kW) installed last year.

Especially, virtually fifty percent (46%) of all big non-residential systems that saw setup in year 2021 were ground-mounted. Only 12% shown off monitoring. The report reveals additional information concerning ground-mounted systems with 13% of small non-residential as well as 2% of residential systems.

Mounted Prices

The report finds that United States mean installed prices have come by near US$ 0.4 c/W every year, while additionally including that yet that price decline has actually lessened since 2013, with prices dropping since then at roughly US$ 0.1c-0.2 c/W annually.

Between 2020-2021, average prices plummeted by US$ 0.1 c- 0.2 c/W across all 3 markets in real, inflation-adjusted terms. This is inspite of the boosting module prices that have actually produced pressure on prices in the last 2 years. As the report summarize this trend:

" Supply chain constraints, widely acknowledged within the market as putting higher pressure on prices, may not be completely mirrored in prices for mounted projects, and also are likewise partially embedded within the inflation change of prices data into actual buck terms. In nominal terms, median prices residential and large non-residential systems climbed in H1 2022."

National, State Trends

According to the report, half of all states have shown an increase in typical residential prices from 2020-2021. A multitude of states have mirrored a fall in non-residential prices.

Average prices for PV systems coupled with battery storage space stood at US$ 0.6-1.6/ W greater than for stand-alone PV systems last year throughout the three customers segments. The report shares:

" Provided typical residential PV as well as storage space sizes, this equates to an underlying incremental cost of roughly US$ 1,200/ kWh of storage space, which is in-line with typical residential storage costs reported via California's Self-Generation Motivation Program."

Co-Located Solar-Plus-Storage

The report likewise provides insights on the trends among paired solar-plus-storage systems, along with an evaluation on battery storage attachment rates as well as system sizing.

The research study reports that battery storage attachment rates have been increasing at a steady rate in the residential sector, touching 10% of the data sample as of 2021. Non-residential attachment rates are lower and have actually transformed throughout the years yet have remained to raise, reaching 4.9% of all systems mounted in 2021.

The attachment rate has uneven distribution throughout the USA. The higher trend in attachment rates such as California is reflective of improvement. Meanwhile, Hawaii reported the biggest attachment rates with 93% residential, 59% non-residential in 2021. Weather condition extremities like tornado Uri that had extreme implcations for Texas, triggered demand for co-located battery power storage space systems (BESS) to rise.

Combined residential systems are remaining to move towards evolution of bigger storage space sizing gradually (approx 42% of systems in 2021 had batteries of minimal 10kW size), paired non-residential systems are decreasing in size. Of the all paired non-residential systems that were set up in 2021, 46% had batteries that were smaller sized than 10kW.