Targeting Sustainable Solar PV Development within NAFTA: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Competitiveness for Rooftop Commercial Solar PV Installations within the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Abstract

As long as there are not widespread, substantial austerity cuts by Western governments caused by the 2009 recession, public support and subsequent public finance for renewables are here to stay in the short term as technology progresses from the R&D stage to the implementation stages of the development cycle. While public support should only continue to increase, the need for government incentives should decline to nil. Nevertheless, as incentive support is necessary in the near term, it should be used efficiently and therefore effectively. In, the countries participating in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the map of incentive support could not be more diverse. In order to analyze this solar market, a Consolidated NAFTA Solar PV State Policy Competitiveness (CNSP2C) model was developed to display the current state of NAFTA’s commercial scale rooftop PV market as well as to compare the effectiveness of different incentive types (State and National Renewable Energy Credits, Feed-In Tariffs, Grants, and Loans). This analysis of the CNSP2C model by government, electric power producers, and the public at large would lead to better policy and overall stronger governance.