There are many states that have a solar carve out in their renewable portfolio standard that has created a market for the purchasing and selling of Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs).  The following websites contain up-to-date information on SREC pricing, auctions and facilitate the exchange of SRECs.  It should be noted that these websites facilitate private exchanges.  The SREC market is a distributed market and several states allow SREC exchanges from out-of-state.

In essence, Virtual Net Metering (VNM) allows the electricity produced by a single solar installation to be credited across multiple utility meters.  Examples can include multifamily housing, community systems that consumers can buy shares in, or multiple meters at a single location, such as a farm.  As many ratepayers, such as renters and many occupants of multi-tenant residential and commercial buildings, are not able to host an onsite PV system, VNM provides an opportunity for them to offset their loads without requiring the system to be physically connected to their meter.

In Decision 08-10-036, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted virtual net metering (VNM) for affordable multifamily housing projects utilizing onsite solar electricity generation to offset tenant loads.  Prior to this decision, installing solar energy systems to offset tenant loads required multiple systems and inverters for each tenant served. The process of developing the VNM implementation and tariff is ongoing.

The Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative aims to make large-scale solar energy systems cost competitive without the use of subsidies by the end of this decade.  The tangible goal is to acheive an installed cost of approximately $1 per watt, which is a 75% reduction from today's installed cost of utility scale solar facilities.  The initiative not only addresses technological improvements but also address non-technological barriers such as permitting and installation.  The SunShot Initiative will be supported by the Solar Energy Technologies Program in four areas;photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, systems integration and market transformation.

Typically, a PV module lasts for 25-30 years before it needs to be disposed of and a certain percentage of breakages, warranty replacements and other change-outs occurs in an ongoing basis (although in many cases there will still be a secondary after-market for these panels that are producing 70-80% of their rated capacity).. Significant volumes of PV installations started to occur in the early 1990s. In this regard, proper disposal and recycling of PV modules in large volumes is expected to occur within the next 5 to 10 years. In some instances, PV manufacturers will take back their panels at their end-of-life and recycle them (e.g. First Solar and Deutsche Solar AG's recycling programs). In other instances coalitions have been formed that work with the solar industry to address voluntary panel take back and end-of-life recycling strategies, such as PV CYCLE in Europe. In late January of 2010, PV Cycle and the European Photovoltaic Industry Association co-organized the First International Conference on PV Module Recycling. PV Recycling, LLC, on the other hand is a for-profit startup company that addresses PV manufacturing scrap and end-of-life modules. As more PV modules reach the end of their life cycle, there will be a growing market for take-back and recycling.

To date there is no nationally required standardized credentials that solar installers have to attain, but on a case-by-case basis state and utility incentive programs are requiring that solar companies completing the install have NABCEP certified installers on their crew. The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) is a voluntary professional certification program that provides solar electric training in design and installation. There are two programs, the NABCEP Entry Level Program and the NABCEP Solar PV Installer Certification. An installer that has been NABCEP certified means that they have completed the NABCEP Solar PV Installer Certification. The latter can only be achieved by highly experienced individuals who have passed a much more rigorous examination and have demonstrated the capability to supervise complete PV system installations, and who have a detailed working knowledge of the electrical codes, standards and accepted industry practice associated with PV installations. Someone who has completed the entry level program means they are starting the job with an understanding of the basic terms and operational aspects of a PV system. However, completing coursework and passing the exam does not qualify an individual to install PV systems and does not designate a certification of completion.

More and more states are considering FITs, and several municipal utilities have implemented them. However, translating the European experience to the U.S. generally faces some obstacles. FITs overcome some of the barriers to the current U.S. system that is bifurcated between net metering and incentives for distributed projects and formal RFP utility procurement for centralized projects (a broad stereotype of the market that may not apply everywhere).  FIT rates are often set above both the wholesale and retail costs of electricity and therein lies the crux of concern.  FITs need to balance the needs of sparking the market with positive rates of return for solar projects and the overall costs of such a utility, state or national program, which ultimately will be borne by taxpayers and/or utility ratepayers.  There are policy options for making FITs responsive to changing market conditions and capping the overall impacts of the program, but clearly the details find themselves part of the nuances of implementing any such new policy and the competing interests with different points of view.