Socioeconomic and Demographic Disparities in Residential Battery Storage Adoption: Evidence from California

David Brown

No 2021-13, Working Papers from University of Alberta, Department of Economics

Abstract: There is growing interest in the adoption of residential battery storage because of its ability to provide bill savings, capture excess solar energy, and provide resiliency value. The resiliency benefits have become increasingly salient in light of recent large-scale power outages. However, these benefits may not accrue to all communities. We explore the presence of disparities in residential battery adoption and the allocation of subsidies under California's Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) by measures of income, race and ethnicity, and a vulnerability index that captures environmental justice (EJ) concerns. We present evidence that battery adoption and subsidy allocations are concentrated in communities that have higher household income and lower EJ concerns. Regression analyses demonstrate that there are disparities in battery adoption rates by household income and race/ethnicity demographic variables, after controlling for important time-varying and regional factors. These findings persist despite the fact that the SGIP has specific funds targeting lower income households and communities, as well as funding targeting wildfi re- and outage-vulnerable households. We demonstrate that these findings are partially, but not fully, driven by SGIP funding eligibility criteria that correlate with communities that have higher income, lower EJ concerns, and a lower percentage of residents of color.

Keywords: Battery Storage; Resiliency; Distributed Energy Resources; Environmental and Energy Justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 I30 L94 Q40 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2021-12-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-reg and nep-res
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Journal Article: Socioeconomic and demographic disparities in residential battery storage adoption: Evidence from California (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:albaec:2021_013

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