Commercial, Distributed Generation, Finance, Industrial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  December 9, 2016

EIA: 30% of distributed solar is third-party owned

Chart provided by the U.S. EIA. 

About 30% of the total amount of distributed solar capacity in the U.S. is owned by private companies, according to data from the U.S. EIA. 

The agency said Dec. 7 that U.S. distributed solar capacity, including all solar power capacity other than utility-scale installations 1 MW or larger, totaled 12.3 GW as of September, and that 3.7 GW of that total is owned third-party owners. The EIA defines third-party owners as "private companies that provide either solar electricity or equipment to generate it to building owners or tenants, typically with little or no upfront costs."

Noting that third-party ownership is just one of many distributed solar ownership options — others include self-financing or utility/public financing —the EIA said in a blog post that the option is less popular among the commercial and industrial sector than in the residential sector. According to the post, third-party owners account for 44% of distributed solar capacity in the residential sector, compared with 11% in the C&I sectors. The residential sector accounts for 56% of distributed solar capacity but 84% of third-party-owned solar capacity.

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