Video: Outlook for solar business in 2025
What will 2025 hold for residential and commercial solar installers? Will financing trends, like the rise of leases, carry over from 2024? Are more solar bankruptcies on the horizon? We discussed all of that and more on the final Power Forward! of 2024 with David Dunlap, VP of product strategy with BayWa r.e. Watch the full conversation here, or skim some key quotes below.
ICYMI, here is the lookback at solar business trends in 2024. You can also listen to this entire conversation in podcast form. Spotify | Apple Podcast | Podbean
Will solar business be up or down in 2025?
Dunlap: “The way that we measure deployed solar, by just the amount of DC Watts for the panels installed on the roof, is going to continue to show some gaps in actually measuring the amount of business being transacted in our space.
“If you add battery storage to an existing PV system, that doesn’t show up as a new system, but it could be just as much revenue generation and just as much work for our trade and the business as a new job. So, we may have some difficulty in measuring that. Something that I keep in mind.
“We can still be doing healthy, robust business as an installer — maybe installing fewer jobs, but spending more time on each job and installing more equipment and a fuller solution. I think that’s a positive for the industry.
“All analysts are saying there should be some uptick there, and residential should get back on track and grow. It comes down to, at the end of the day, the consumer confidence. And most installers are saying that they need to change their conversation at the kitchen table in order to build more trust and more confidence in going solar.
“The prior five to seven years of ‘I’m going to install a solar generation facility and your electric bill is going to go to zero, sign here please,’ those days are numbered, if not gone.”
PV supply and pricing outlook to start 2025
Dunlap: “Globally, there is still excess supply in many markets and continuing to put pressure on new manufacturing. Pricing in the U.S. is a little healthier than in Europe as a whole, but we continue to hear weekly about a fresh new deal on PV modules, but also in some cases inverters and some other product categories.
“I think we’re coming to an end on that. If I had to bet, I would say within certainly the first half of next year, if not first quarter, the lion’s share of that excess and oversupply is gone. I also think that AD/CVD case is making it clear that if you’re not following the US trade policy … the cost of importing product will be too high to be competitive, and that’s going to cause a mass exodus of a lot of the brands that were represented in the U.S. because of the two-year presidential moratorium on new tariffs. That’s passed now.
There’s some inventory here in the U.S. that still needs to be consumed and installed, but it’s not being backfilled today, so I think that landscape is shifting towards more of an equilibrium and a narrower overall price range on PV that is supportive of directionally U.S. manufactured product, or clean as far as the trade policy standards.”
“I know a lot of installers don’t like to hear that their business is going to get more expensive, but I think many of the low prices have actually been enabled at somebody’s net loss — and that’s not sustainable.”
Trump solar policy predictions
Dunlap: “What we know about the Republican Party majority, and what the IRA and the 45x and investment funds have done has been predominantly within red majority states and Republican communities. They’re seeing job creation, they’re seeing Investments, they’re seeing a lot of the things that are very near and dear to their agenda. I don’t see them wanting to get rid of that opportunity.
“So, maybe renewable energy being less favored than traditional oil and gas, that’s probably a true statement, but I don’t think it’s sort of an either-or. I’m actually hearing a lot of push back against some of the statements that Trump has made, with Republicans saying we actually do want both traditional energy sources and renewables. They’re good business.”
Pick up the rest of BayWa r.e.’s 2025 outlook right here
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