Know Solar Trends 2021

Borg Energy experts are discussing here about the three areas that will determine the industry’s fortunes in the coming year: business trends, technology, and government policy.

Business trends

One of the biggest decision points for solar customers is price. For installers, the price they are able to offer depends on two main factors: hard costs and soft costs. Hard costs include the costs of materials, namely the solar panels and solar inverters. Soft costs include non-material expenses like customer acquisition, permitting, and the actual installation of your system, says experts of Borg Energy.

The hard costs associated with solar have been falling steadily over the past decade, dropping 50 percent from 2015 through 2019, as equipment manufacturers have improved the efficiency and scale of their operations. This decline in hard costs has been a big driver of the decreasing solar prices in recent years.

Soft costs, on the other hand, have remained relatively constant, as skilled labor remains scarce and the permitting process remains mired in red tape. This holds huge potential for improvement in 2021, especially with the launch of instant permitting tools like SolarApp.

Technology

On the Energy Sage Marketplace and beyond, an emerging trend is pairing solar with complementary products, such as energy storage systems, EV chargers, or air source heat pumps (ASHPs), a form of electrified heating and cooling that can be powered with solar. This movement toward “solar-plus” makes sense–if you install a solar panel system, you’ll want to get the most out of it. Greater electrification helps to increase your solar savings, as it allows the electricity produced by your solar system to stretch further, lowering the cost you pay to power your various devices. This is also a boon for the environment, as electrification plus solar will significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Experts of Borg Energy expect this trend to continue growing in 2021, as EVs continue to proliferate and as more home and business owners add storage, in particular, to their solar installations. Few solar companies offer all, or even most, of these additional technologies, but those that do (like Tesla) have found this to be a very successful strategy.