New avenues for community solar adoption research: A qualitative comparative analysis of ten U.S. states

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2025

Department

Department of Social Sciences

Abstract

Community solar presents an opportunity for every household and business to harness the advantages of solar energy. In the community solar adoption literature, qualitative and case-specific investigations have suggested potential adoption factors, such as related policies, solar technical potential, and socioeconomic measures. However, limited effort has been devoted to evaluating the complex dynamics of these causal conditions, let alone the development of empirical evidence. This paper fills these gaps using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine the dynamics of U.S. community solar adoption factors. The application of fsQCA, grounded in set-theoretic principles and truth-table analysis, enables a comprehensive evaluation of the various configurations of conditions that contribute to community solar adoption among the top ten adopting states. The results show that, in the most active states, adoption paths vary in government liberalism. For conservative states, the primary factors were a non-wealthy GDP per capita and strong solar potential. On the other hand, liberal states commonly had strong solar potential and high electricity prices as their common factors for adopting community solar.

Publication Title

Utilities Policy

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