%0 Journal Article %A Sydney Forrester %A Cristina Crespo Montañés %A Eric O'Shaughnessy %A Galen L Barbose %B Nature Communications %D 2024 %G eng %R https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48967-x %T Modeling the potential effects of rooftop solar on household energy burden in the United States %U https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48967-x %V 15 %8 06/2024 %X

Policymakers at the federal and state level have begun to incorporate energy burden into equity goals and program evaluations, aiming to reduce energy burden below a high level of 6% for lower income households in the United States. Pairing an empirical household-level dataset spanning United States geographies together with modeled hourly energy demand curves, we show that rooftop solar reduces energy burden across a majority of adopters during our study period from a median of 3.3% to 2.6%. For low- and moderate-income adopters (at or below 80% and 120% of area median income, respectively), solar reduces median 2021 energy burden from 7.7% to 6.2%, and 4.1% to 3.3%, respectively. Importantly, solar reduces the rate of high or severe energy burden from 67% of all low-income households before adoption to 52% of households following adoption, and correspondingly from 21% to 13% for moderate-income households. Here, we show rooftop solar can support policy goals to reduce energy burden along with strategies such as weatherization and bill assistance.