In 2023, Assistant Professor Fedor Dokshin received a Climate Positive Energy award for his research project “Performance matters: Augmenting analyses of residential solar PV deployment and distribution with system performance data.” His research explores solar energy, particularly solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and their equity and performance.
“Not every solar system is the same,” explains Fedor. “Some solar systems, people are very happy about. But then there’s some systems and some arrangements that people have actually been quite unhappy about. Sometimes you have companies that are not very good at what they do, or they go out of business. So, I wanted to look at an assessment of the quality of the systems that people are getting installed.”
Fedor’s research with Sociology PhD candidate, Mircea Gherghina, is the first study in its field to examine and assess the equity and performance of solar PV systems. The research team partnered with the Connecticut Green Bank to get data on system generation for the company’s whole fleet of solar PV systems. “We showed that there are in fact disparities in terms of the quality of the installations themselves.”
If a system is poorly installed, a household may not be getting the benefit that they might otherwise have. Additionally, because these are systems that provincial and federal governments are sometimes subsidizing, taxpayers who are paying for systems may argue it’s not a good allocation of their taxes. Most importantly, Fedor explains, “In the early stages of any market, you really want success stories. You want technology that you tell your neighbor about and say, ‘hey, you should also get a solar panel because it works great.’ So if people aren’t happy with their solar panels, then that could be a barrier to future adoption. Bad systems can really hinder the development of that market, and conversely, good systems and success stories can then accelerate and improve the development of that market.”
Fedor also focuses on the role that solar installation companies play in residential solar PV deployment and performance disparities. “Installation companies are instrumental in two ways. First, we’re finding that installers’ marketing strategies, and especially their door-to-door sales tactics, importantly shape access to solar PV. Second, we find that performance of solar PV systems varies considerably by installer, so whether you get a well-performing system or not depends on the company that installs it. Because there is some predatory behavior in the industry, this contributes to unequal outcomes in the sector.”
The results from his ongoing studies will form the basis for future government policy recommendations to support residential solar PV’s contribution to a faster, more equitable energy transition.
In previous research, Fedor looked at polarization around renewable energy technologies, examining how partisan politics may impede deployment in the United States. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Democrats do adopt the technologies more, but that Republicans respond to economic incentives. “That partisan gap is bridged when solar economics are better and more favorable.” The research also has potential to benefit civic associations and social movements as well as policy makers.
As a social scientist, Fedor brings a unique perspective to tackling the climate challenge. “There are a lot of social aspects to the spread of innovations. Social scientists tend to foreground aspects of the energy transition that often stand in the way of change. Humans are social animals and we tend to do what people around us do. If it’s normal to install a solar system, more people will do it.”