Preliminary non-hardware (“soft”) cost-reduction Roadmap for residential and small commercial solar photovoltaics, 2013-2020

This paper presents results from the first effort to quantitatively roadmap reductions in non-hardware, soft costs for photovoltaic (PV) systems at the residential and small commercial (<;250-kW) scales with annual resolution to 2020. The roadmap methodology employed by the semiconductor and crystalline silicon PV industries is intentionally adapted to derive a nonhardware corollary to technology-based roadmaps (i.e., International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and International Technology Roadmap for PV). Installer-level data in the areas of 1) customer acquisition, 2) permitting, inspection, and interconnection (PII), and 3) installation labor are used to benchmark 2010 soft costs relative to the U.S. Department of Energy´s SunShot Initiative total soft-cost $/W targets by 2020 ($0.65/W for residential systems and $0.44/W for commercial systems). Cost reductions in financing are also assessed and measured in terms of % weighted average cost of capital (WACC). The roadmaps draw on industry expertise to plot conceivable courses to the residential and commercial PV soft-cost reductions required to achieve the 2020 SunShot targets, and they suggest the level of effort that may be required to achieve SunShot-level cost reductions in specific soft-cost areas. Results indicate that for residential P V, additional reductions of $0.46/W and 1.6% WACC beyond the current-trajectory reductions are required to achieve the SunShot target. For commercial P V, additional reductions of $0.11/W and 1.1% WACC are required.