Nearly 4% of U.S. homes have solar panels installed
According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2020 residential energy consumption survey, about 3.7% of U.S. single-family homes generated electricity from small-scale solar arrays. In EIA’s 2018 Commercial Energy Consumption Survey, 1.6% of commercial buildings were found to have small-scale solar generation.
Residential solar construction varied greatly by region. The West had the highest amount at 8.9%, followed by the Northeast (4.7%), South (1.7%), and Midwest (1.4%).
Commercial solar adoption was also most common in the West, with 3.8% of buildings generating electricity with local solar. This was followed by the Northeast (2.5%), Midwest (0.8%), and South (0.6%).
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The presence of small-scale solar in residential and commercial buildings also differs by year of construction, according to the report. Buildings constructed after 1980 were more likely to have solar installed.
The report also noted that 5.7% of households with incomes above $150,000 installed solar, while 1.1% of households with incomes below $20,000 did so.
The EIA survey also revealed that government-owned buildings were more likely to have small-scale solar generation than non-government buildings. Public, educational, office, office, or commercial buildings accounted for 61% of all commercial buildings reporting having small-scale solar generation.
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On the rise
Solar adoption in all sectors, from residential to utilities, is expected to increase significantly over the next decade. Following the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, a Princeton University study claims that solar deployment can accelerate from 2020 rates of 10 GW of capacity added per year to nearly five times that by 2024, adding 49 GW of utility-scale solar each year. According to Princeton, solar deployment could be well over 100 GW per year by 2030.
Solar investment could reach $321 billion by 2030, nearly double the $177 billion projected under current policy. According to the report, the bill is expected to generate nearly $3.5 trillion of cumulative capital investment in new U.S. energy supply over the next decade.
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Annual U.S. energy spending is expected to be reduced by at least 4% by 2030 under the law, saving nearly $50 billion per year for households, businesses and industry. This translates into hundreds of dollars in annual energy cost savings for U.S. households. The bill’s tax credits, rebates and federal investments would shift the costs of energy bills to the progressive federal tax base.
