PhD Dissertation Proposal Defense: Cooper Sigrist, Simultaneously Improving the Carbon-Efficiency, Energy Generation, and Equity of New Rooftop PV Installations with Evolutionary Learning

Content

Abstract

Rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations have grown rapidly around the world, thanks to falling prices and incentive policies that spur adoption. These installations play a critical role in reducing the CO2 emissions of electricity and thus are important for various climate goals. Using ZIP code-level data spanning the United States that details PV installations, energy generation, electric grids, and demographics, we find that areas with the greatest potential for CO2 offset—often lower-income, coal-reliant regions—are underutilized in the current distribution of installations and will remain underutilized in near-term projections of rooftop PV adoption. Through a series of counterfactual “what-if” analyses, we show that changing current adoption trends could increase CO2 reduction by 40%, using multi-objective evolutionary learning, and that these benefits could remain stable in the face of competing priorities beyond the singular goal of CO2 reduction (e.g., distributional impacts). Our key insights rely on PV installations in regions that experience less sunlight (and thus less energy generation) but offset electricity from a local grid with high emissions, offering guidelines for future rooftop PV incentive revisions. These findings reveal a misalignment between existing rooftop PV installation trends in the United States and the goal of CO2 reduction.

Advisor

Mohammad Hajiesmaili