California’s Solar Industry Faces Crisis: Job Losses, Policy Changes, and Rising Energy Prices Threaten Rooftop Solar.

The most read article of 2023 is a look at the top ten most anticipated articles by pv magazine USA, focusing on residential solar asset longevity, changes to net metering policy, market signals, and domestic manufacturing. The article also discusses the California Public Utilities Commission’s proposed decision to disallow residents of multi-meter properties from consuming their own rooftop solar production, even if they own the solar array. This decision is expected to be harmful to the value of rooftop solar for renters in multifamily housing, farms, and schools. California is experiencing the effects of unpopular policy changes like the introduction of Net Energy Metering (NEM) 3.0 and recent market rate cuts for rooftop solar generation by renters, schools, and farms. Over 17,000 solar jobs have been lost in 2023, representing 22% of all solar jobs in the industry. The demise of rooftop rooftop solar in Indiana coincides with significant increases in electricity prices over the last two decades. The magazine also highlights the growing Curtailment of renewable energy, particularly solar generation, as a trend that is on the rise in California, with intermittent solar generation causing temporary gluts of generation due to a lack of available transmission infrastructure or energy storage capacity or storage capacity increasing.