My Research: Political Barriers to Solar PV in Florida (2/3)

Note: This is Part 2 of a three-part series of blog posts that delve into the findings of my thesis research. Part 1 gave a top-level overview of the main findings. Part 3 will explore strategies at the county and city level to deploy more solar within the prevailing policy framework.

Policy and regulatory barriers to solar PV

In this post I will highlight the main policy and regulatory barriers to greater solar PV adoption in Florida based on conversations with 19 experts familiar with the solar industry in the state. My objective is to illustrate the areas of consensus and, at times, ardent disagreement among key stakeholders. I spoke to representatives from the utility sector, solar advocates and solar companies, municipal and county government officials, journalists and researchers as well as the commercial sector (click here to see more detailed breakdown).

To recap: in my previous post I introduced the following table detailing the main solar PV barriers evoked by the different interviewees. The remainder of the piece will dig a bit deeper into the barriers mentioned for which there is disagreement among experts and/or the expert interviews shed a different light on the importance of a specific barrier compared to my preliminary desk research.