Small-Scale PV for Large-Scale Market Penetration

Small-Scale PV for Large-Scale Market Penetration

U.S. market data suggest that regardless of the sector, the size of PV installations is trending toward larger and larger projects.  While this may be good in aggregate terms, the opportunity for PV to reach its enormous potential rests with broad based support that comes with smaller and more ubiquitous residential and commercial grid-tied systems.

By accentuating its distributive and scalable attributes and creating a groundswell popular movement, PV affirms its political base and its place on the load side of the grid.

There are reasons ‘why’ the industry has gravitated to larger systems:

• Economies of scale
• Availability of capital & incentives
• Developer, financial, and legal expertise
• RPS’s that drive the time line for adoption
• Utility support . . .

But, large scale is large business . . . and it’s not so interesting to homeowners or small business owners; and it does not enfranchise and enlists the public at large.

For the PV industry to approach its market promise, all PV installations are important.  But the industry especially needs to incite a boom in small scale installations; a boom that can last thirty years.  By small scale, I suggest <3kW for residential and <100kW for commercial.

The long held assumptions favoring large scale projects are changing with reduced system costs, improved technology and design, and an increase in industry scale and work force development.

For residential and commercial sectors, small scale PV systems are: 

• Affordable (cost less)
• Easier to install
• More efficient
• Easier to maintain
• An attractive ROI

In the housing industry, a large ownership base resulted in decades of economic and public policy support that favors home ownership.  The same holds true for the PV industry.