What are solar soft costs? Soft costs are any costs, fees, or taxes that are included with a product after material and labor. While solar energy is worthwhile, thanks to the long term savings and the benefits for the environment, many potential users are hesitant at first due to the initial cost. A significant portion of the heavy sticker price is the “extra” added when taking soft costs into account.
Solar is becoming more prevalent in America, and many users are beginning to see their investment come to fruition. Unfortunately, many potential users are halted before they get started; so let’s look at some of the soft costs and how they could be reduced.
As the graph shows, a massive 64% of the cost of solar is due to soft costs. Costs like permitting fees, interconnection labor, installation labor, and installer profit are significant portions of the soft costs, but are also necessary. The solar system needs to be approved by the city (permitting fee), connected to the grid (interconnection labor), installed (installation labor), and the company selling it needs to make some profit to stay open and continue selling their product (installer profit). However, most of the other costs could be trimmed down so there isn’t as much of a cost for each one.
The other portions of soft cost: sales tax, transaction costs, supply chain costs, indirect corporate costs, and customer acquisition, CAN be reduced, sometimes to virtually nothing. Some states actually pay the solar user, through stipends or other incentives, to install rather than charge sales tax; therefore, sales tax could be done away with or reworked so the user gets that cost back. In fact, some states like Florida, do not charge sales tax on renewable energy, effectively eliminating this soft cost.
Transaction costs are costs that come from a third-party lender when the buyer needs a loan and could be reduced to a lower rate. We find that buyers need to be aware of the hidden fees and transactions costs that can quickly add significant cost to their installation. Some transaction costs are unavoidable and more than fair. After all, no one is going to loan you money at 0% interest. That being said, be aware of who is charging what fees and where they’re being charged in the process. Supply chain costs are from the transporting and housing of solar units from the company to the buyer. Better supply chain management and cooperative buying can help reduce this cost.
Lastly, and probably most interestingly, customer acquisition is the cost for the solar installer to reach out and connect its potential customers. This cost is effectively sales and marketing; and while it’s a necessary function, you can immediately see the issue. If hundreds of people contact their local solar installer only to be turned away because of bad site conditions, not being able to finance the system, or any number of reasons, the solar contractor has spent money on a customer that ultimately cannot buy its product. That means this cost must be charged to the next customer who CAN purchase the system. The U.S. Department of Energy and many startups around the country are developing tools explicitly designed to attack this problem. The more information at the fingertips of consumers and contractors helps reduce the amount of time spent on projects that just simply could never be built.
A good way to think of solar installation with lower soft costs is to merely look overseas. Germany is one example of solar installation working without high soft costs and their wide user base is proof it’s effective. By making solar more available (cheaper), Germany has a much bigger user base than the United States and they see more users every year. Although the process of buying solar is different in Germany, they immediately provide savings by getting rid of most soft costs from the start.
Let’s not handicap solar right out of the gate. By working to significantly reduce soft costs, we can make solar more affordable for everyday Alabamians. Quite literally, giving them the power back.
