NREL Conduit Blog

Efforts to expand solar access to harder-to-reach markets have been the focus of dedicated low- and moderate-income (LMI) solar policies and programs over the past several years. Community solar programs and various financing mechanisms have been enacted at the state and local levels to extend solar access across diverse populations.

This STAT Chat podcast features Phillip Beiter and Anthony Lopez from the Strategic Analysis Center as part of the Meet a Solar Expert series, a behind the scenes look at solar industry professionals.

In February, the Solar STAT blog featured a post on 2012’s Hurricane Sandy and  how solar PV can support disaster resiliency . Extreme weather events are not limited to hurricanes, of course. Others, like California’s ongoing drought, pose additional challenges for electricity generators but also demonstrate an emerging role for solar energy.

This three-part STAT Chat podcast series features Joyce McLaren, a senior energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, discussing value of solar (VOS) policy, including what it is, how it is developed, and which methodologies are being used in the marketplace.

Most states have implemented net energy metering (NEM) policies to value the contributions of distributed generation photovoltaics (DGPV) to the electricity grid.

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.

This is the first blog in a four-part series of articles in which we discuss either the valuation of solar to the grid and various stakeholders or value-of-solar (VOS) tariffs and policies.