Understanding the Impacts of Local Policies on Distributed Photovoltaic Market Development

A growing body of literature discusses the impacts of state-level policies on the development of distributed photovoltaic (PV) markets both in the implementing jurisdictions and spilling into others. Localities (municipalities and counties) are also increasing their involvement in policy development to support clean energy markets. There is a barrier to knowing the impacts of the policies within a jurisdiction as well as how the patchwork of local policies interacts to contribute to national PV market developments. This barrier can result in an inability for localities to implement effective and efficient local policies. This paper aims to reduce this barrier by (1) summarizing local activities related to solar in 151 localities as a means of determining trends in local PV policy action, (2) looking critically at several local policy environments in two states to determine if successful policy strategies or interesting observations warrant further investigation on the impacts of local policy, and (3) outlining the challenges of and opportunities for developing improved data for supporting an understanding of local policy impacts on the national market.