As solar hardware costs continue to fall, soft costs are comprising an increasingly larger portion of total PV system costs. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has made it a strategic priority to address these costs, and this morning announced $21 million in funding for two programs to this end.
$13 million of this funding will go to state governments to address soft costs and market barriers through strategic energy and economic planning. The funding will be used to provide technical support and to assist in the creation of partnerships between states and utilities.
DOE says that capacity limits at the state level are an issue that it seeks to partially alleviate. Many states do not have the knowledge, time, or staff resources needed to develop a robust solar deployment strategy, declared DOE in a press statement.
The remaining $8 million will support the second round of the Solar Energy Evolution and Diffusion Studies (SEEDS) program, which will partner researchers with data and energy experts to look at how solar technologies, the grid and the solar marketplace supports or inhibits the growth of solar.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
1 comment
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.