Scientists have conducted a survey and analyzed transaction costs of PV projects for residential PV projects. They focused on the time searching for and assessing information, as well as the time spent on aspects with regard to financing, permits and contracts. Scoping information was the most time-consuming task.
Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have assessed the transaction costs of photovoltaic acquisition of residential solar energy. Their focus was on time as transaction costs, which in essence consists of the search for and assessing information, as well as the time spent on aspects with regard to financing, permits and contracts.
“The aim of this study is therefore to empirically assess the transaction costs that PV adopters of solar energy have with them in continuing an acquisition process,” explains the academics. “Data on transaction costs, expressed as time spent on 14 sub-tasks, for PV systems mounted by homes in southern Sweden (acquired 2015-2021) were collected via online surveys aimed at owners of single-family and multi-family buildings.”
The survey was sent to 1,281 participants and had 300 valid respondents. 264 of them were single -family homes (SF) building owners and the rest were owners of several families (MF). Of the 36 MF response, there were 14 construction companies and the other 22 were home cooperatives. A focus group was organized to triangle the research results for the MF response.
“There were 116 questions in the survey in general,” said the team. “The respondents were asked to estimate the total number of hours spent on tasks with regard to the PV acquisition process.
In terms of installed PV capacities, the reported effects usually vary from 3 kW to 25 kW for the SF group and 8 kW to 484 kW for the MF group. The average time spent on the entire process was 83 hours for owners of SF buildings, 70 hours for owners of MF buildings and 138 hours for MF home cooperatives. The median time was 45 hours, 36 hours and 86 hours respectively.
Source: Lund University, Energy Research & Social Science, CC by 4.0
All groups have said that the initial preparation phase of scoping information was the most time-consuming task that 37% of the average time of SF, 31% represents in the case of MF companies and 36% in the case of companies. The selection of suppliers and installers is the second most time-consuming task for the owners of the SF buildings and the MF home cooperatives, with 13% and 12% of the average time respectively. In the case of MF companies it was 10%.
“In August 2018, building permits were usually no longer required for installing PV systems on solar energy on buildings throughout Sweden,” the group emphasized. “This lighting in the National Building Code reduced the share of permits required for the SF respondents of 26% (2015-2018) to 9% (2019-2020), and for MF respondents of 71% (2015-2018) to 32% (2019-2021).”
In both the SF and the aggregated MF groups, about 57% of the respondents said that they have dealt with communication with the grid operator themselves, and more than 80% of those who have spent 0-2 hours on the application.
“Of those who had to receive a loan to finance their PV purchase, 86% of the SF and 100% of the aggregated MF groups reported 0-1 hours spent on this task,” the academics showed. “The answers to the study also indicate small concerns about insurance issues, since 63% of the Respondents of the SF group and 61% from the aggregated MF -Groeps -State states that they have not spent any time on this at all.”
Their findings were presented in “Assessing the transaction costs of the photovoltaic acquisition of residential solar energy“Published in Energy research and social sciences.
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