It's not incentives. The installation costs ("soft costs") are much lower in Australia than the US. Basically, installers in the US are spending a lot of money on advertising, profit margins, and red tape. In Australia, no money on ads, no money on red tape, and tiny profit margins. This has been documented for several years.
I wish we could get the same dynamic going in the US that is going in Australia, but I'm not sure what it'll take; the US market has been persistently overpriced relative to other markets for years.
i can answer that, but some in USA won't like it.
with consultation with csiro, (government scientists), australia framed their rebate similar to how USA has its wind
incentives based upon output, (not cost) australia has its upfront solar incentives based upon modelled output. so alignment of roof, sunny days per year, angle of roof etc affected the incentives. as in the usa, sunny locations tend to be conservative, so generally it tended more to be installed by those who vote right instead of left. (similar to wind energy being in texas etc.)
In Australia, the solar incentives were supported by both sides of government, it was really created under the LNP (Howard) and then scaled out under labor (Rudd).
LNP rebates were just for 'low' income earners, and it design seemed to approximate 1/2 the cost of a system in a southern capital, so a $16,000 system would cost $8,000. what happened was that less urban, lower cost, sunnier australia could get an total install for $9,000, so $9,000-8,000 = $1,000 system. i actually showed a system to a work colleague (she qualified) that was nil cost, it had a $1,500 deposit that would be refunded when they got their money from gov. she never could bring herself to do it, it seemed to good to be true, she felt she would lose the deposit, only once it was no longer available did decide it was a good idea. this breaks the skepticism.
Labour expanded the availability of rebates for all, but reduced the amount per kWh, now it could scale out.
but the die is set, s
ay a customer is comparing 2 similar systems, differing providers, one cost $16,000 - $8,000 = $8,000 and the other costs $12,000 - $8,000 = $4,000. the cheaper option wins.
and so, because the incentive is equalized on output, the
cheapest option is leveraged far more. contrast with usa, the gov incentives is based upon cost, not output, so the most expensive option is leverages more. opposite effect to australia, and the usa incentive breeds political polarization.
summary, Australian government incentives were based upon output, not cost, output really leverages the cheapest, USA government incentives were based upon cost, which promotes the most expensive options, and discourages the cheapest.
as long as usa fed government bases their incentive upon cost and not output, persistent overpricing is rewarded, not discouraged.
