Challenge for Regional Teams to Improve Market Conditions for Rooftop PV

The Challenge is designed to drive improvements in market conditions for rooftop PV, with an emphasis on streamlined and standardized permitting processes. The proposed structure is intended to encourage participation by diverse entities and ensure meaningful results. The recipients in the Challenge are intended to be partnerships of local governments, utilities, regional transmission organizations/independent system operators, etc., across several jurisdictions. Reducing non-hardware costs and removing market barriers in major regions across the U.S. would lead to a significant increase in domestic PV sales. There are four main action areas in the Challenge, designed so that recipients who succeed in all action areas will come out of the Challenge period with all the necessary elements in place to support a robust solar market in their region. While success in one action area would represent important progress, it is only with results in all four action areas that recipients will truly reap the economic and environmental benefits associated with a healthy solar energy market. Challenge recipients will need to engage the necessary stakeholders so that all the critical market elements can be addressed.