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2016 Annual Program Assessment

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In its 2016 Annual Program Assessment report issued in June 2016, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) affirmed that statewide solar installations continued to increase in 2015, largely without rebate incentives. This suggests the program has substantially reached its goal of stimulating widespread adoption of solar and creating a self-sustaining market, free of direct cost-support in the form of program rebates.

Highlights of the report include:

  • The CSI General Market program has exceeded its goal of installing 1,750 MW by the end of 2016. As of December 31, 2015, the CSI General Market Program had installed 1,753.6 MW with another 139.7 MW reserved in pending projects.
  • Between the last quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2014, the average cost of installed residential systems has decreased 53 percent from $10.87 per watt to $5.14 per watt.
  • Between the last quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2014, non-residential system costs have decreased 62 percent from an average of $10.30 per watt to $3.93 per watt.
  • Through the end of 2015, an estimated 3,570 MW of solar capacity has been installed on the customer side of the meter (including projects that didn’t receive CSI program incentives) at 451,597 customer sites in the large investor-owned utility (IOU) territories.
  • All but 281 MW, or 7 percent, of customer-sited solar energy systems interconnected to the grid in the large investor-owned utility territories are enrolled in Net Energy Metering.
  • The CSI Single-Family Affordable Solar Homes (SASH) program has completed a total of 5,681 projects, representing 17.2 MW of installed capacity on eligible homes. There are an additional 317 SASH projects in progress, with a total capacity of over 1.0 MW.
  • The CSI Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) program has completed 372 projects, representing 24.67 MW of installed capacity. There are an additional 214 MASH projects in progress or under review, with a total capacity of 38.6 MW.
  • Since January 2010, the CSI Thermal program has approved 3,407 applications for $47.5 million in incentives of the available $205 million CSI Thermal incentive budget.
  • The CSI Research, Development, Demonstration and Deployment (RD&D) program has conducted five project solicitations since its inception, resulting in grant funding for 36 projects, totaling $44.4 million. Funded projects have focused on the following areas: integration of solar photovoltaics (PV) into the electricity grid, energy generation technologies and business development, and grid integration and production technologies.

Weekly solar program data is available at http://www.CaliforniaSolarStatistics.ca.govwww.caldgstats.com, and http://www.csithermalstats.org.