U.S. Solar PV Installation Prices and Attributes Through 2017

Berkeley Lab's Tracking the Sun report analyzes over 1.3 million grid-connected solar photovoltaic systems installed in the United States through 2017. The dataset, representing 81% of U.S. residential and non-residential systems, provides project-level data on installed prices, location, ownership, and system design. Analysis of pricing trends is based on a subset of roughly 770,000 systems with available cost data.

Use Cases

• Analyze installed price trends over time and across different project locations to identify regional market disparities.
• Model the relationship between system design attributes and installed prices for residential versus non-residential projects.
• Investigate project ownership patterns and their correlation with other reported system characteristics.

Strengths

• Covers over 1.3 million individual PV systems, providing a large-scale view of the U.S. distributed solar market.
• Represents 81% of all U.S. residential and non-residential PV systems installed through 2017, ensuring broad coverage.
• Includes detailed project attributes such as installed price, location, ownership type, and system design for analysis.

Limitations

• Primary analysis of installed prices is based on a subset of roughly 770,000 systems, not the full 1.3 million records.
• Core data covers systems installed only through year-end 2017, with preliminary data for early 2018, making it temporally limited for current analysis.
• Data is aggregated into report formats (PDF, HTML, MD) rather than a structured, queryable database, complicating direct analysis.

Provenance

Source

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Department of Energy.

Collection Method

Project-level data reported to state agencies and utilities administering PV incentive programs, SREC registration systems, or interconnection processes.

Time Range

Systems installed through year-end 2017, with preliminary trends for the first half of 2018.

Freshness

Report updated in June 2024, but underlying data covers installations through 2017.

Geography

United States.