%0 Report
%A Galen L Barbose
%A Naïm R Darghouth
%A Eric O'Shaughnessy
%A Sydney Forrester
%D 2024
%G eng
%T Tracking the Sun: Pricing and Design Trends for Distributed Photovoltaic Systems in the United States, 2024 Edition
%8 08/2024
%X <p>Berkeley Lab’s annual <em>Tracking the Sun</em> report describes trends among grid-connected, distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) and paired PV+storage systems in the United States. For the purpose of this report, distributed solar includes residential systems, roof-mounted non-residential systems, and ground-mounted systems up to 5 MW-AC.&nbsp; Ground-mounted systems larger than 5 MW-AC are covered in Berkeley Lab’s companion annual report, <a href="https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar/"><em>Utility-Scale Solar</em></a>.</p><p>The latest edition of the report is based on 3.7 million systems installed through year-end 2023, representing close to 80% of systems installed to date. The report describes and discusses key trends related to:</p><ul><li><strong>Project characteristics</strong>, including system size, module efficiencies, roof-coverage ratios, prevalence of paired PV with storage, use of module-level power electronics, third-party ownership, mounting configurations, panel orientation, and customer segmentation</li><li><strong>Median installed-price trends</strong>, both nationally and by state</li><li><strong>Variability in pricing</strong> according to system size, state, installer, equipment type, and other factors, relying on both descriptive analysis and a multi-variate regression to estimate the effects of key pricing drivers for residential systems installed in 2023.</li></ul>