As Cheap as Our Peers: How cutting red tape can lower the cost of rooftop solar and offset rising utility bills
Lower Utility Bills by Cutting Red Tape
How smart state policies can make rooftop solar affordable for millions of Americans
American families are facing a growing energy affordability crisis. Utility bills have risen faster than inflation since 2022—and are set to keep climbing as utilities request record rate hikes. Today, one in seven households lives in energy poverty.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Our new report finds that by reducing the “soft costs” of solar installation, families could see their electricity bills drop 61% by 2040—saving an average of $1,600 a year.
“Most Americans are unable to leverage rooftop solar to help address a growing affordability crisis because installation costs are unnecessarily expensive.”
Why solar costs so much in the U.S.
Installing rooftop solar in the U.S. is far more expensive than in peer countries—up to seven times higher than in Australia or Germany. Bureaucratic red tape, outdated permitting systems, and patchwork rules drive up costs and slow adoption.
At a median of $28,000 for a 7 kW system, American families pay between $18,000 and $24,000 more than they would abroad. These unnecessary costs are locking millions of households out of cheap energy.
Permit Power’s modeling shows that cutting red tape to match peer-country costs would unlock enormous economic benefits by 2040:
18.2 million more families would install rooftop solar — a 155% increase.
$245 billion in cumulative savings for families.
Households installing solar will save an average of $31,000 more in bills over the 25-year lifetime of their systems after taking into account the upfront cost of the system, translating into $1.2 trillion across all families installing solar.
198.1 GW more rooftop solar capacity, supporting grid stability.
That means millions more Americans could power their homes affordably and cleanly — without waiting for federal action or new subsidies.
Simpler Solar Regulations Would Save Americans $1.2 Trillion
By Alexander Kaufman: A new analysis by Permit Power calculates the cumulative benefits of cheap rooftop solar over the lifetime of a typical rig. Liberty-loving Americans are prone to poke fun at the bureaucratic nightmares Australians and Germans face when attempting to do just about anything. But try installing solar panels on your roof in the U.S. Americans pay a median price of $28,000 for a 7-kilowatt system. The typical Australian, meanwhile, spends just $4,000, and the German — after filling out a mere two-page application — pays $10,000 per project.
