Home solar panel installations are soaring in the US. What’s driving the rise?

Oct 19, 2022

A building with multiple solar panels on its roof.

Nearly 4 in every 10 US homeowners have given serious thought to installing solar panels over the past year. Image: Unsplash/Jubbar J.

Rebecca Leppert

Editorial Assistant, Pew Research Center.

Brian Kennedy

Research Associate, Pew Research Center

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Climate Change is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Climate Change

A chart showing homeowners in the west most likely to have considered or installed solar panels.

Among homeowners in the Pacific region, 45% say they’ve given serious thought to installing solar panels to generate electricity for their home. Image: Pew Research Center.

A chart showing majority of democratic homeowners say they have seriously considered or already installed home solar panels.

When asked about possible reasons for installing solar panels, almost all homeowners who have installed them or considered doing so (92%) see saving money on bills as a reason. Image: Pew Research Center.

A chart showing most homeowners who have considered installing solar panels want to both save money and the environment.

The federal tax credit for home solar panels was 26% of the installation costs prior to the recent law, which increased that percentage to 30% through 2032. Image: Pew Research Center.

Discover

What's the World Economic Forum doing about the transition to clean energy?

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.