Community Influence of Houses of Worship on Rooftop Solar Growth Rates

With a high upfront cost and only eventual return on investment of the technology, wealthier communities have adopted more rooftop solar than low- and moderate-income communities (LMI). Even after correcting for differences in income, there are observed racial and ethnic differences in rooftop solar installations. A better understanding of solar adoption influences is needed to reduce the observed disparities in rooftop solar across demographic lines. While studies suggest peer effects influence solar adoption, there is a gap in the literature investigating the influence of community institutions on solar installation rates. Of particular interest are houses of worship since they are trusted, community-level organizations that may be able to engage with a broader audience. In this study, the influence of houses of worship adopting rooftop solar on residential installation growth rates in the surrounding community were assessed. Shapiro-Wilk tests, Mood's median tests, and LOWESS models were used to draw conclusions about the differences in growth rates between census tracts in the United States with and without rooftop solar on a house of worship. The data was segmented by race and ethnicity and studied across demographic features including median household income, home ownership, and education level. Overall, the census tracts with a house of worship installation had higher growth rates for residential installations. However, results varied by racial and ethnic group when additional demographic features were included. Diverse, Hispanic, and White majority census tracts showed consistent, statistically significant (at a significance level of 0.05) higher solar adoption growth rates in communities with house of worship installs. However, Asian, and Black majority communities showed inconsistent patterns.