Source: Currently Interconnected Data Set, California Solar Statistics
Note: The data set only includes interconnected solar PV Net Energy Metering (NEM) projects and presents the current "state of the world" in terms of how many interconnected solar PV projects and how many megawatts are installed in a given geographic area. Calculations based on "Application Approved Date." Includes standalone solar PV projects and hybrid projects (e.g., solar PV plus battery storage).
Other includes the educational, military, non-profit, and government sectors.
Analysis by CEC Economics
Highlights
- After a stellar year of growth in 2022, interconnected distributed capacity within the three investor-owned utilities service territories totaled 2,215 MW (in alternating current) in 2023, up 0.8% from 2022. Residential continues to be the largest sector, accounting for 83.7% of the interconnected distributed generation installed (1,855 MW) in 2023. Notably, the residential sector is the only major sector where interconnected solar is growing. However, it declined from 2022 to 2023 in the industrial (-21.4%) and commercial (-16.7%) sectors. As for the other sectors, which fell slightly by 0.2% from 80.2 MW 2022 to 80.1 MW in 2023, interconnected solar fell 3.5% in the educational sector, fell 92.1% in military, fell 26.7% in the non-profit sector, and grew 29.2% in the government sector.
- The pace of residential rooftop solar has slowed since the net energy meter tariff was revised earlier this year in a way that reduces the economic benefit to rooftop solar customers (the new tariff is called NEM 3.0). Utility interconnection request data shows that solar sales have fallen between 66% and 83% year-over-year following NEM 3.0.84
84 Kennedy, Ryan. “California rooftop solar installations drop 80% following NEM 3.0.” PV Magazine, December 1, 2023. Available at: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/01/california-rooftop-solar-installations-drop-80-following-nem-3-0/
Opportunity
- In 2023, California became the first state to require both solar PV and energy storage systems on all new and some retrofitted commercial buildings, following the California Energy Commission (CEC) update to the 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards.85 This could lead to a rebound in storage installations from the residential and commercial sectors. Indeed, in the residential sector, after the new net billing tariff (NBT) replaced the net energy metering (NEM) tariff in April 2023, storage attachment rates, or the rate of PV systems installed paired with a storage system, rose from about 10% under the NEM tariffs to 60%.86
85 California Energy Commission.2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards Title 24, Part 6, and Associated Administrative Regulations in Part 1. December 23, 2022. Assessed August 15, 2023.Avilable at: https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2022/2022-building-energy-efficiency-standards-residential-and-nonresidential.
86 Barbose, Galen. “One Year In: Tracking the Impacts of NEM 3.0 on California’s Residential Solar Market.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, May 2024. Available at: https://live-lbl-eta-publications.pantheonsite.io/sites/default/files/ca_nem_3.0_technical_brief.pdf
More About
Renewable Energy
Related Content