Climate change will impact the value and optimal adoption of residential rooftop solar

ABSTRACT Rooftop solar adoption is critical for residential decarbonization and hinges on its value to households. Climate change will probably affect the value of rooftop solar through

impacts on rooftop solar generation and cooling demand, but no studies have quantified this effect. In this study, we quantified household-level effects of climate change on rooftop solar

value and techno-economically optimal capacity by integrating empirical demand data for over 2,000 US households across 17 cities, household-level simulation and optimization models, and

downscaled weather data for historic and future climates. We found that climate change will increase the value of rooftop solar to households by up to 19% and increase techno-economically

optimal household capacity by up to 25% by the end of the century under a Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 scenario. This increased value is robust across cities, households, future

warming scenarios and retail tariff structures. Researchers, installers and policymakers should capture this increasing value to maximize household and system value of rooftop solar. Access

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MODELING THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF ROOFTOP SOLAR ON HOUSEHOLD ENERGY BURDEN IN THE UNITED STATES Article Open access 01 June 2024 GREEN ROOFS SAVE ENERGY IN CITIES AND FIGHT REGIONAL CLIMATE

CHANGE Article 12 February 2024 ROOFTOP PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR PANELS WARM UP AND COOL DOWN CITIES Article Open access 07 October 2024 DATA AVAILABILITY The individual hourly cooling behaviour

data can be obtained from Ecobee upon request38. The future TGW climate data are from the US Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information39 and are publicly available.

Other data sources are provided in Methods and Supplementary Information. The household-level VOS and optimal solar capacity data are available via Figshare at

https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25296250.v1 (ref. 64). CODE AVAILABILITY The codes (python scripts) are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25296250.v1 (ref.

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_Figshare_ https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25296250.v1 (2024). Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant

nos. 72025401, 72243007 and 72140003), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2022YFC3702902, 2022YFC3702900 and 2023YFE0204600), the Carbon Neutrality and

Energy System Transformation (CNEST) Project and the Ordos-Tsinghua Innovative & Collaborative Research Program in Carbon Neutrality. M.T.C. thanks the U.S. National Science Foundation

under grant no. 2142421 for funding. We thank P. Wildstein for building modelling and grid tariff analysis and R. Jain for building simulations. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS *

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Mai Shi & Xi Lu * School for Environment and

Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Mai Shi & Michael T. Craig * Institute for Carbon Neutrality, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Xi Lu * Department of

Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Michael T. Craig Authors * Mai Shi View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Xi Lu View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Michael T. Craig View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS M.S. developed the research concept, designed and performed the analysis, collected data, wrote the code and drafted the paper. M.T.C contributed to the

development of the concept, reviewed the codes and revised the narrative structure and language of the paper. X.L. contributed to the draft paper and its revision. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS

Correspondence to Xi Lu or Michael T. Craig. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. PEER REVIEW PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Climate Change_

thanks Amarasinghage T. D. Perera, Zhili Wang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer

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and applicable law. Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Shi, M., Lu, X. & Craig, M.T. Climate change will impact the value and optimal adoption of residential

rooftop solar. _Nat. Clim. Chang._ 14, 482–489 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01978-4 Download citation * Received: 20 July 2023 * Accepted: 08 March 2024 * Published: 19 April

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