NREL Conduit Blog

For many people, owning a private solar photovoltaic (PV) generation system is simply not feasible because of costs, siting issues, or housing type (i.e. rental properties or multifamily housing units). Community solar programs - sometimes called solar gardens - provide one way to increase access to the solar market, reduce up-front costs, and allow for optimal siting.

According to projections from Green Tech Media, a new distributed photovoltaic (PV) system will be installed in the United States roughly every 80 seconds by the year 2016, making interconnection-related concerns and innovations a top priority. A streamlined interconnection process is needed to keep pace with this expected growth in demand for solar energy systems. Ultimately, both utilities and consumers can benefit from reduced solar project timeframes and costs.

The benefits and costs of distributed generation photovoltaics (DGPV) has become a trending topic among solar renewable energy professionals and policymakers. Currently, several jurisdictions are trying to develop a method for valuing solar while other locations are trying to determine the fairness of net energy metering (NEM) policies based on the benefits and costs of solar. Almost everyone agrees that this is not an easy question.

This is the fourth and final blog in a series of articles on the growing interest in identifying and incorporating the values of solar (VOS) to the grid into electricity rate structures.

Sarah Booth, an energy analyst and India analysis project lead, answers seven questions about her work at NREL.