Highlights from the 2023 EnergySage Solar and Storage Marketplace Report

Last year was another tumultuous year for the residential solar industry in the U.S. with persistent inflation and California’s Net Billing Tariff, making it as imperative as ever to provide transparency into the solar and storage market.

The EnergySage data team is excited to present the 18th edition of the EnergySage Intel: Solar & Storage Marketplace Report, covering the twelve months from January 2023 through December 2023. It delves into pricing trends, equipment preferences, Marketplace shares, and financing terms within the residential solar and storage marketplaces on EnergySage.

Read on to learn about some of the report's key findings.

We analyzed quotes submitted by solar companies to shoppers in the Marketplace throughout 2023, comparing the first half of the year to trends over the second half of the year. For the first time in over two years, the median quoted solar price on EnergySage decreased, dropping to $2.80 per watt ($/W), 3.5% lower than the first half of 2023.

To provide a sense of market dynamics in different states and regions, EnergySage analyzed Marketplace quote data for the second half of 2023 for the five states with the most cumulative solar electric capacity installed through the third quarter of 2023 based on data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie.

For the sixth Solar & Storage Marketplace Report in a row, four of the top five solar states (excluding Colorado) had median quoted prices below the national median price. Notably, half of solar quotes on EnergySage were priced below $2.75/W in California in the second half of the year. This sharp increase from only 20% of quotes in H1 2023 is driven by companies seeking to improve solar economics in the state after the sunsetting of net metering.

Interest in energy storage remains high on EnergySage. Seven out of 10 solar shoppers requested battery quotes on EnergySage throughout 2023.

As the storage market reaches new homeowners, the drivers of interest in storage continue to evolve: In the second half of 2023, very little separated the three main motivators for storage interest on EnergySage. Financial savings, maximizing self-consumption, and backup power each accounted for more than 30% of interest in storage.

For the three years since EnergySage began tracking storage pricing in July 2020, the story has been the same: The median price for batteries quoted on EnergySage increased during every six-month period.

Similar to solar pricing, the trend of increasing storage pricing reversed over the second half of 2023, with the median price dropping 6.4% compared to the first six months of the year. This drop in prices is driven by a 19% decrease in quoted storage prices in California, where we’ve seen a nearly 45% storage attachment rate since the Net Billing Tariff went into effect.

Our goal is to educate and inform interested clean energy shoppers. We encourage you to reference or share these findings with attribution to EnergySage or energysage.com and link to this page.