The Importance of Switching Costs to the US Residential Solar Industry
The DoE and numerous organizations and governments globally are focused on driving down the cost of solar convinced that lower costs will drive higher deployment. The cost of manufacturing modules and soft costs are in focus as is driving down LCOE.
Switching costs are more difficult to address, however, they are a crucial piece of the residential PV deployment puzzle.
The term switching costs refers to the effort or expense or inconvenience or all three required to switch from one product or service to another. The more expensive the cost of the switch in terms of money and inconvenience and the more habits and routines that must change to make the switch the higher the switching costs.
