Analysis by CEC Economics
Highlights
- Homeowners are more likely to have solar as the main fuel heating source127 than renters. In 2023, solar made up 2.0% of owner-occupied households and just 0.3% of renter-occupied households, compared to 1.9% of owner-occupied households and 0.3% of renter-occupied households in 2022. While the shares are small seem relatively unchanged year-over-year, in terms of number of households, that translates to approximately a 10% growth for both groups--one of the fastest growing heating fuel source percentage wise.
- Drilling down to a more detailed geographic level, parts of Fresno County, Kern County, and San Joaquin County emerge as notable hotspots with high solar adoption among owner-occupied households.128 East Central Fresno City topped the list with 8.6% of owner-occupied households using solar as the main heating fuel in 2023, followed by Southwest Bakersfield City (8.2%), Fairfield and Suisun City areas (8.1%), Delano, Wasco, & Shafter areas in Kern County (7.5%), and Clovis City (7.1%).
- Solar adoption as the main heating fuel source among renter-occupied households still lags far behind owner-occupied households. In 2023, only four areas had over three percent of renter-occupied households using solar as the main heating fuel: Northwest Bakersfield and Rosedale (5.2%), Southeast Ventura County (3.5%), Central San Diego City, Clairemont, and Kearny Mesa areas (3.3%), and West Central Riverside County (3.1%).
127 “Active Solar Heating.” U.S. Department of Energy. Available at: https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/active-solar-heating
128 Specifically, these are called public use microdata areas (PUMAs), which are non-overlapping, statistical geographic areas that partition each state or equivalent entity into geographic areas containing no fewer than 100,000 people each. The delineation of new PUMAs occurs after the completion of the decennial census. For the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Samples (ACS PUMS) specifically, the new boundaries for PUMAs started with the 2022 data; direct comparison with data from previous years is not possible.
More About
Energy Efficiency
Related Content