Accessibility in sustainability transitions: U.S. electric utilities’ deployment of solar

Abstract

Several policies promote the adoption of renewable electricity among incumbent utilities. Yet, the scale of consumer adoption appears limited by accessibility. The underlying factors inhibiting accessibility are exacerbated with low- and middle-income (LMI) consumers who not only have substantial income disparities but also make up a significant proportion of a utility's customer base. While prior research demonstrates that policies can help in scaling participation hurdles in solar, the extent to which utility efforts help to unlock the market potential for LMI participation is not evident. We contribute to distributional effects of environmental policy by evaluating utilities' efforts to provide consumer access to clean energy. Reviewing solar initiatives of utilities, as reflected on their website enhanced with secondary archival data, we find that the role of accessibility particularly for LMI households, either through community solar projects (CSP) or rooftop solar installations, is shaped by policy and complementary factors. Such factors include ownership models either through subscriptions or rooftop panel ownership, income disparity, the regulatory regime, and a combination of these factors. Our findings further suggest that utilities are more likely to support LMI accessibility to their CSPs in the presence of policy intervention such as solar incentives and retail choice markets when their customer base is significantly LMI households. In fact, LMI access by subscription is stronger in retail choice markets, whereas access to rooftop solar panels is an increasing function of income.