A REVIEW OF SOLAR PV BENEFIT & COST STUDIES

This report, published by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in September 2013, reviews 16 benefit and cost studies of distributed photovoltaics (DPV) conducted between 2005 and 2013. It aims to establish a foundation for valuing distributed energy resources (DERs) by identifying methodological best practices and gaps in how the electricity sector quantifies the costs and benefits of DPV.

• There is a significant range of estimated DPV value across the 16 reviewed studies, which is primarily caused by differences in local system context, input assumptions, and methodological approaches.
• No single study has provided a comprehensive evaluation of all DPV benefits and costs, although there is general agreement on broad categories of value.
• Energy value is typically the most significant source of benefit and is generally calculated as the avoided cost of the marginal resource, which is most often assumed to be natural gas.
• Generation capacity value is most accurately determined using the Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) approach, which measures the additional load that can be met with the same reliability after adding DPV.
• Transmission and distribution (T&D) capacity value is highly site-specific; while strategically targeted DPV can defer upgrades, dispersed deployment provides less benefit.
• There is significant disagreement and a lack of standardized methodology for estimating grid support services and unmonetized values, such as financial risk, security risk, environmental, and social values.
• The value of DPV is expected to change as penetration increases, as higher levels of DPV may push the system peak to later in the day and displace less costly resources in the capacity stack.
• Costs associated with increased DPV deployment, such as integration costs and the need for additional grid support services, are not adequately assessed in the reviewed literature.
• Environmental value is heavily driven by the price placed on carbon and the emission intensity of the marginal resource being displaced.

APA

RMI (2013). A REVIEW OF SOLAR PV BENEFIT & COST STUDIES. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_eLab-DER-Benefit-Cost-Deck_2nd-Edition_130903.pdf

Chicago

RMI. A REVIEW OF SOLAR PV BENEFIT & COST STUDIES. 2013. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_eLab-DER-Benefit-Cost-Deck_2nd-Edition_130903.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=A REVIEW OF SOLAR PV BENEFIT & COST STUDIES |date=September 2013 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_eLab-DER-Benefit-Cost-Deck_2nd-Edition_130903.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2013review, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{A REVIEW OF SOLAR PV BENEFIT \& COST STUDIES}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2013}, month = sep, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_eLab-DER-Benefit-Cost-Deck_2nd-Edition_130903.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }