This report documents green power marketing activities and trends in the United States, focusing on consumer decisions to purchase electricity supplied from renewable energy sources.

This report examines the utility-accessible external disconnect switch debate in the context of utility-interactive PV systems for residential and small commercial PV installations. It focuses on safety, reliability, and cost implications of requiring an external disconnect switch.

This report explores the design and implementation of feed-in tariff policies, including a policy definition, various payment structures, and payment differentiation options. The report also discusses the interaction between FIT and RPS policies.

This analysis uses simulated building data, simulated solar photovoltaic (PV) data, and actual electric utility tariff data from 25 cities to better understand the impacts of different commercial rate structures on the value of solar PV systems. By analyzing and comparing 55 unique rate structures across the United States, this study seeks to identify the rate components that have the greatest effect on the value of PV systems.

This publication examines the solar lease option for residential PV systems and describes two solar lease programs already in place. As a result of the $2,000 cap on the residential ITC being lifted in 2009, the expansion of the solar lease model across the United States may be slower than anticipated. The lease model, though, still offers homeowners some distinct advantages. This publication helps homeowners revisit the comparison between the solar lease and home-equity financing in light of the change to the ITC.

This fact sheet addresses the financial, logistical, and legal questions relevant to implementing PPAs for PV installations.

These model net metering rules incorporate updated lessons learned and best practices since IREC's first release in 2003. Among the important advances in net metering rules incorporated within the model IREC rule are: increase in the size of systems eligible for net metering, expansion of program capacity caps, meter aggregation, and accommodation of third-party ownership of net metered systems.

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) has worked closely with The Vote Solar Initiative to develop model program rules for community-scale renewables that consider many of the basic issues facing community renewables programs. IREC’s model program rules address such issues as renewable system size, interconnection, eligibility for participation, allocation of the benefits flowing from participation, net metering of system production, and other essential features of a community renewables program.

In this report, the authors studied different facets of crediting mechanisms, and defined five different theoretical models describing different ways competitive suppliers and utilities provide net metering options for their customers. They then provided case studies to illustrate the models.

To achieve a sizable and self-sustaining market for grid-connected, customer-sited photovoltaic (PV) systems, solar will likely need to be competitive with retail electricity rates. In this report, we examine the impact of retail rate design on the economic value of commercial PV systems in California. Using 15-minute interval building load and PV production data from 24 actual commercial PV installations, we compare the value of the bill savings across 20 commercial customer retail rates currently offered in the state.