US home solar installers brace for slowdown as California reform looms

By Nichola Groom

(Reuters) – U.S. residential solar installers are bracing for a slowdown this year as California, the sector’s pioneer and biggest market, is days away from slashing a subsidy for panel owners that has underpinned more than a decade of explosive growth.

The policy change, years in the making, will reduce the money credited to rooftop solar owners for sending excess power into the grid, a reform adopted after critics successfully argued the perk is unfair to those without panels.

Solar companies say the move threatens California’s efforts to decarbonize the grid by 2045 by slowing installations, while state regulators say the reform will shore up power reliability by adding new incentives for homeowners to buy batteries that store clean power on site.

California boasts 38% of the nation’s residential solar capacity, buttressing the U.S. market’s 40% surge in 2022, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group. More than 1.5 million Golden State homes have solar, state data show.

That makes the state a critical market for national installers like SunPower (NASDAQ:) Corp and Sunrun (NASDAQ:) Inc. They and others have noted a spike in California installations this year as consumers scrambled to get systems connected before the policy change on April 15.

Under the reform, Californians signed up to go solar will be compensated for power their systems send to the grid, at a rate based on what the utility spent to buy clean electricity elsewhere. Currently, solar owners receive credit at or near the higher full retail rate.

The change will push the time it takes the typical solar customer to see a payback from their investment to about nine years from the current three to five years, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

EnergySage, an online solar marketplace, told Reuters the number of buyers on its platform increased 500% in the first quarter, ahead of the policy’s implementation.

That mini-boom will help the U.S. residential market rise 7% this year, according to SEIA, but the trade group is expecting a 3% contraction next year as California installations slide 38%.

Nationwide growth is expected to remain in the single digits through 2027, SEIA said.

California Solar & Storage Association Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro called the transition difficult. “Boom and bust cycles are never good for industry,” she said.

Residential solar installers are already grappling with higher interest rates that cut into the value of financed systems, and tighter available credit.

Analysts from CFRA Research and Roth Capital have predicted consolidation in the rooftop market this year.

Installer Better Earth, which operates in California, Arizona and Florida, said sales are up around 30% this month, but the company is not sure what to expect beyond that.

“It’s going to be a new reality and nobody knows what that reality will look like,” Jeremy Nicholson, vice president of inside sales at installer Better Earth, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, companies expect the new policy’s incentives for battery storage will boost sales of those systems, which can cost $10,000 or more to install.

SunPower CEO Peter Faricy told investors in February that more than 40% of solar installations in California could be paired with storage within a few years, up from around 15% now.

“The battery goes from something that would be helpful for resiliency to something actually critical as part of saving money,” Faricy said.

Kunal Girotra, CEO of battery storage company Lunar Energy, said adding batteries can shave two to four years off of the nine-year payback period for solar systems under the new policy.