Characteristics and Feedback from Residential PV Early Adopters

The residential photovoltaics (PV) market has been growing rapidly during recent years and is generally expected to continue to expand during the next decade. As this market segment continues to grow, there is a critical need to improve understanding of what product changes, policies, and marketing strategies are likely to be effective in expanding the residential PV market beyond early adopters to a larger group of mainstream consumers. This paper presents results from a sixty-two question survey of over two hundred residential PV owners in the United States. Their feedback provides detailed information on this group's: demographics, PV purchasing motivations, consumer satisfaction, hobbies and interests, PV-related learning and purchasing experience, and suggestions for increasing PV sales. A summary of the study methodology, results, and suggestions for applying this new information to help gain insight into how to expand the residential PV market will be discussed in this paper.