Solar Adoption by Mandates

Stefano Carattini, Wade Davis, Figge, Béla and Anton Heimerdinger

No 21808, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Solar mandates are spreading rapidly. We leverage California’s frontrunner experience to examine their economics. First, we parameterize an engineering model to estimate private payoffs from solar adoption in residential new construction. Second, we test for a “solar gap†by comparing payoffs with observed adoption. Although estimated payoffs are generally positive, adoption varies widely. Most buildings do not adopt solar despite positive estimated payoffs, which explain little of the variation in adoption decisions. Third, we evaluate San Francisco’s citywide and California’s statewide mandates. Both mandates increased solar adoption considerably.

Keywords: Solar photovoltaic; Building codes; Regulation; Engineering Models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 Q42 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21808 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21808

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP21808

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().