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THE PRIVATE NET BENEFITS OF RESIDENTIAL SOLAR PV: THE ROLE OF ELECTRICITY TARIFFS, TAX INCENTIVES AND REBATES

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With dramatic declines in the cost of solar PV technology over the last 5 years, the electricity industry
is in the midst of discussions about whether to use this low-polluting renewable energy source in grid-scale
generation or in distributed generation (DG), mostly with rooftop solar PV. California has led the
growth in DG solar in the U.S. I use 2007 to early 2014 residential data from Pacific Gas & Electric
– the utility with largest number of residential solar customers in the U.S. – to examine the full range
of private incentives for installing residential solar, from the direct payments and tax credits to the
indirect incentives that result from the residential tariff design and the crediting of solar production
under “net energy metering.” I then study the income distribution of solar adopters and how that has
changed over time. I find the skew to wealthy households adopting solar is still significant, but has
lessened since 2011. Adoption continues to be dominated by the heaviest electricity-consuming households,
probably because the steeply-tiered tariff structure greatly increases the private value of solar to such
customers while reducing the incentive for consumers who are below median consumption. In fact,
the financial incentive for those who adopt solar over the sample period may have been due nearly
as much to California's tiered tariff structure as to the 30% federal tax credit. The California experience
suggests that rate design can greatly influence the economic incentives for residential solar adoption
and which customers receive those benefits.

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Ketersediaan

EJ2015

My Library

Tersedia

Informasi Detil

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

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Penerbit

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH : Massacusetts., 2015

Deskripsi Fisik

33 p.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

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Klasifikasi

NONE

Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

NBER Working Paper No. 21342

Subyek

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Info Detil Spesifik

Ejurnal

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

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