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Why isn’t rooftop solar cheaper in America? In Australia in 2024, a standard rooftop system can cost as little as 90 cents per watt. In the U.S., a similar system might go for $4 per watt. If America could come even close to Australia’s rooftop solar prices, then we would be able to decarbonize the power system much faster than we are now.
Mary Powell has the answers. She is the chief executive officer of Sunrun, a $2.6 billion company that is the country’s largest rooftop solar and battery installer. Sunrun has set up or managed more than 900,000 rooftop systems across the U.S. Powell previously led Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest investor-owned power company.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key — a continuation, of sorts, to one of our most popular early episodes — Rob and Jesse talk about how the rooftop solar business works and what’s driving America’s higher costs. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: And so, just some stats to start off the conversation. The latest quarterly solar update from the Department of Energy notes that the average cost of a 2 to 10 kilowatt residential rooftop system in the U.S. is roughly $4 per watt, DC, installed. That’s the full installed system costs, not just the modules.
I just looked up solarchoice.net.au, the Australian site that tracks bids and costs in Australia, which has one of the most vibrant rooftop solar industries in the country. There, you can now install a rooftop solar system in Sydney for just under $1 U.S. per watt, which is quite remarkable — you know, dramatically cheaper than it was a few years ago, but also dramatically cheaper than the U.S residential solar market, by a factor of four.
And so obviously, if we could knock the cost of rooftop solar in the U.S. down by another 75%, it would be an incredible value proposition all over the country. So, how do we get there, Mary? What explains why solar in the U.S., rooftop solar, is much more expensive than it is in places like Australia — I should say, it’s not just Australia. It’s also, you know, the U.K. and Germany and Belgium and other places. Why is it so much more expensive here now than it is in these other countries? And how do we drive down the cost of residential solar installations in the U.S. so that we can unlock that potential here, too?
Mary Powell: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that is so exciting when you think about it, Jesse. What gets me so excited when you say that is I think, ‘Oh my gosh, we are selling all across America now with savings against what people are paying for utility power.’ So customers — even at our current costs. So back to your question on how I see the future, just think about how powerful that will be as we continue to innovate and figure out ways to drive down the cost.
Now, that said, the biggest driver of the cost difference is the way the American energy system is built. And not just that, but we have 40,000 AHJs in the United States that each have their own distinct solar process and rules. And in Australia they have fewer than 600.
Robinson Meyer: And those are like cities?
Powell: It’s housing jurisdictions. It’s like — let me give you an example. In DuPage County, Illinois, we have to have a full time employee pull permits all day. Only one permit at a time.
You know, the other big thing in the U.S. is our whole energy system, as we know, it is very much driven by state and regional rules. Like rules of the road, a lot of regulatory differences from one jurisdiction to another, a lot of massive differences from one utility to another. So, you know, interconnection for residential is still costly, time consuming, and is even prohibited in some areas. Interconnection fees for home solar systems from utilities range from $100 to $10,000. So, one of the bright spots is the work that Sunrun was involved in, a lot of players were involved in, and that Secretary Jennifer Granholm is really focused on, which is SolarAPP+. So, that is one way to drive down the cost, Jesse.
Back to the difference: So really, I would say, the biggest difference is bureaucracy. When you talk about Australia and you talk about the U.S., that’s the biggest difference.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…
Watershed's climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
FischTank PR uses its decade-plus experience working in the climate tech space to introduce clients to top-tier journalists at the right time, for the right story. We don’t tire-spin — we take action and understand we are hired to get results. To learn more, visit fischtankpr.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
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On a potential deregulatory slowdown, community solar’s dimming, and Pope Leo on climate
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Imelda is set to gain intensity this week and whip the southeastern U.S. with soaking rain and storm surge • Frigid night air is forecast across northern New England • Typhoon Bualoi is flooding broad swaths of Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos.
The federal government is closed.Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
The federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. this morning after President Donald Trump and Republicans failed to reach a deal with Democrats in Congress on a bill to keep its funding flowing. That could slow the Environmental Protection Agency’s deregulatory effort, E&E News reported Tuesday. “The political crisis that threatens to shutter much of the federal bureaucracy at midnight comes as Administrator Lee Zeldin is racing to unravel high-profile rules on things like climate science, vehicle pollution, power plants, oil and gas wells, and carbon emissions reporting,” reporter Jean Chemnick wrote. An abrupt halt to the agency’s activities would at the very least set back Zeldin’s reform effort, including an agency reorganization set to begin this month.
The Department of the Interior, meanwhile, sent employees an email Tuesday warning that the agency “has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse in appropriations forced by Congressional Democrats.” Neither Interior nor the EPA had published updated shutdown plans taking into account staff reductions under the current Trump administration as of Tuesday.
When the Department of Defense bought a 15% stake in MP Materials, the continent’s only active rare earths mine, The Economist called it the most significant entry by the federal government into a private market since the railroads were nationalized in World War I. (Biden administration officials were admittedly jealous, as Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin reported.) Now the Trump administration has taken another share of a major mineral project. The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office said Tuesday that it had renegotiated a multi-billion-dollar loan to back construction of Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada. The project, on track to become the Western Hemisphere’s largest lithium producer by 2028, will transform a remote stretch of high Nevada desert into a lithium clay mine, harvesting from one of the world’s richest known deposits.
Under the new deal, the federal government will take a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas and an additional 5% ownership of the company’s joint venture with General Motors. The Energy Department called its stakes “part of the overall collateral package on a loan, helping to reduce repayment risk for taxpayers.” But the announcement said the “revised agreement” includes “robust loan amendments,” notably “more than $100 million of new equity.”
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Community solar installations are plunging. After a record-breaking 2024, installations of new panels in small-scale cooperative or community solar projects dropped 36% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act slashed the cumulative five-year outlook for community solar by 8% compared to the outlook before the legislation repealed vast chunks of the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s according to a new analysis from Wood Mackenzie.
Yet Jeff Cramer, the chief executive of the Coalition for Community Solar Access, said states are stepping up “with historic expansions like New Jersey’s 3,000 megawatts and Massachusetts’ 900 megawatts.” He added: “These bright spots show what’s possible when policymakers work to unlock capacity. At the same time, this report makes clear the challenges ahead — from federal uncertainty to interconnection delays and program caps — that must be addressed to realize the full potential of community solar and deliver the resilient, affordable power communities are asking for.”
Most Americans say that rising electricity prices have at least “a decent amount” of impact on household finances. “Still, for about 40% of the country, those high prices are more a pinch than a pain,” Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer wrote. That’s the finding of a new Heatmap Pro poll on rising rates. The results had some predictable outcomes, including that more than 70% of voters with household incomes below $50,000 said rising bills were a problem with “a lot of" impact on spending. Upward of 62% of voters earning less than $100,000 described similar issues, as did 59% of white voters without a college degree.
It’s been difficult for “Vatican-watchers” to pin down Pope Leo XIV’s views on most issues. But “on climate change,” The New York Times wrote on Tuesday, “it is clear that he is moved by the topic, and particularly its disproportionate harm to poor and vulnerable people.” The world is about to get a lot more clarity on his views. On Wednesday, the Pontiff is scheduled to give his first address on climate change at a conference taking place at the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo.
The remarks come on the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si, a groundbreaking papal document written by the late Pope Francis that overhauled the Catholic Church’s teachings on climate change. The 2015 encyclical was widely credited with pushing forward carbon-cutting negotiations at the global climate summit in Paris that year.
Africa's biggest petrostate is having a solar boom. Nigeria became Africa’s second-largest importer of solar panels over the past year by overtaking Egypt. The imports total 1.7 gigawatts. “It is a response to a problem … You can’t rely on a 24/7 grid in most parts of Nigeria at the moment,” Ashvin Dayal, senior vice-president of power at Rockefeller Foundation, which backed the mini-grid project, told the Financial Times. “Demand is booming for reliable, affordable electricity both for inside the home, but also to run small businesses, to run agricultural appliances, to increase productivity and incomes.”
Rob debriefs with colleagues on the latest climate news.
It’s been a busy few weeks for climate and energy. New York Climate Week brought hundreds of events — and thousands of people — to the city to discuss decarbonization and energy policy. The New Jersey governor’s race has raised the salience of electricity rates. And suddenly everyone is talking about energy affordability.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by his colleagues at Heatmap to discuss some of the biggest topics in energy and climate. What did they take away from New York Climate Week? What do the new politics of affordability mean for climate policy? And what are the benefits — and hazards — of arguing for climate policy by talking about how clean energy is cheap energy?
This Heatmap reporter roundtable features Heatmap’s deputy editor Jillian Goodman and its staff writers, Emily Pontecorvo and Matthew Zeitlin. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jillian Goodman: I want to back up a minute and just ask, what are we talking about when we’re talking about goldplating? What constitutes gilding the utility infrastructure, and what is not getting built because we’re doing all of this goldplating?
Matthew Zeitlin: Well, it’s funny, right? You’ll never read an IRP where they’ll be like, Alright, here’s our goldplated spending. What the advocates would say is that it’s often distribution, transmission and distribution spending that’s going across their territory and it’s not bringing down prices. I mean, again, it’s a completely subjective — well, not completely subjective. It is a subjective claim.
Goodman: Part of what’s motivating my question is, are we talking about things like installing smart meters?
Zeitlin: Well, in California, there’s been backlash to undergrounding. You know, it’s funny, because the utility structure makes it so anything good you want to do, the people have to pay for. So like even undergrounding electricity lines has become quite controversial in the American West because it’s so expensive.
Now, is that goldplating? Or is that climate resilience to decrease the chance of wildfires? Is it resilience? Is it building up climate resilience to the more wildfires caused by higher temperatures?
Emily Pontecorvo: I will just point out, it is also a policy choice by public service commissions and those who put people on those commissions to give the utility the rate of return that they get. There’s a lot of advocacy around lowering that rate of return, and also to put the degree of the cost of that goldplating on ratepayers that they do. They could have investors share more of that cost, and they’re just scared to do that. The utilities kind of scare them away from doing that. But it is possible. It’s in their power, at least.
Mentioned:
Everything that happened at Heatmap’s Climate Week event
Matthew on the peril for Democrats of running on electricity prices
Emily on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
Arjun Krishnaswami in Utility Dive
Jillian’s downshift; Emily’s downshift; Matthew’s quasi-upshift; Rob’s downshift.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Hydrostor is building the future of energy with Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage. Delivering clean, reliable power with 500-megawatt facilities sited on 100 acres, Hydrostor’s energy storage projects are transforming the grid and creating thousands of American jobs. Learn more at hydrostor.ca.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
More than a quarter say they’re being hit hard, according to a Heatmap Pro poll.
Most Americans say that rising electricity bills are having at least “a decent amount” of impact on their household finances, according to a new Heatmap Pro poll.
The poll, which surveyed more than 3,700 registered voters last month, gives context to how electricity prices have come to dominate national headlines in recent months — and why they’ve become an urgent issue at the state and local level in a few key regions.
On the 2024 campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to cut voters’ power bills in half within a year of getting elected. So far, that hasn’t happened: Electricity prices have risen more than twice as fast as inflation over the past 12 months and are still rising, according to government data.
Voters are beginning to feel the squeeze from that inflation. In our poll, 26% of American registered voters said that rising electricity prices were having “a lot” of impact on their personal finances. Another 31% said that rising prices were having a “decent amount” of impact.
Still, for about 40% of the country, those high prices are more a pinch than a pain. Thirty percent of registered voters said that rising prices only had “a little bit” of impact on their personal finances, while 9% said they were having “none at all.” There wasn’t a significant partisan division in sensitivity to the high prices.
The survey did show some regional distinctions, however. In the Northeast, 63% of registered voters reported that rising power prices were causing them “a lot” or “a decent amount” of trouble. In the Midwest, only 52% of voters told the poll the same thing. The South, with 56%, and the West, with 61%, landed somewhere in between.
As might be expected, lower-income voters described more trouble. More than 70% of voters with household income below $50,000 a year said that rising power bills were having “a lot” of impact on their finances. Some 62% of voters earning less than $100,000 also described issues. So did 59% of white voters without a college degree.
The rising cost of power has become a major question in New Jersey’s political race, where it has haunted ads and led Representative Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate, to promise to freeze power rates for a year if she is elected.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said that rising electricity costs are his No. 1 concern as energy secretary, although he has conceded the Trump administration is “going to get blamed” for surging power rates. The Trump administration has revoked permits for new offshore projects along the East Coast, and congressional Republicans have ended tax credits for solar and wind energy.
Wright told Politico in August that he blames “momentum of the Obama-Biden policies” for the surging power rates. Donald Trump was president from 2017 to 2021, after Obama and before Biden.