Reducing soft costs has become the holy grail of solar. However, the wrong soft costs – marketing and customer acquisition – are being targeted.

An entire industry of solar support businesses – from lead providers to software companies claiming to have the ultimate roof qualification tool – has emerged to reduce installers’ customer-acquisition costs. That was to be expected. In addition, state programs like Solarize Massachusetts aim to reduce installers’ soft costs and make solar more economical for consumers by shifting the marketing responsibility to communities.

That focus is misplaced. Don’t get me wrong: Having Solarize communities actively engaged in marketing is a huge factor in the success of those programs. Yet, every industry has customer-acquisition costs and you don’t see state agencies running out to help, for example, the intrusion and fire alarm industry to acquire more customers at less cost.

The real enemy is administrative soft costs – especially those in New England, where we regularly interface with state agencies, almost 30 utilities and hundreds of local municipalities. Administrative soft costs related to rebates, interconnections, permitting and inspections nibble at installers like ducks of many species. Each takes a bite of time and budget, and many get fatter as the fledgling industry grows.

Read the full article, which details the specific permitting and administrative challenges and costs we deal with on a daily basis, here.

Looking for more on this topic? Solar Industry ran another perspective on solar permitting issues in April. That article points out some of the progress being made with solar permitting standardization efforts, including this: “Since Vermont standardized and streamlined its permitting, it has become ‘number one in solar jobs per capita in the nation. Permit times decreased from an average of 45 days to just 10 days.’

Even closer to home, the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission issued a report entitled “Solar Friendly Best Planning Practices for New Hampshire Communities” in January. The report provides local officials with a road map of sorts for developing consumer-friendly solar policies covering issues like zoning, planning, and building permitting processes.

Solar soft costs ultimately hurt consumers and regional economies. Let’s hope New Hampshire communities follow the guidelines in the SNHPC report, and let’s hope other states including Massachusetts follow the lead of New Hampshire and the other states that are tackling soft costs head on.