PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Manuel Frondel
AU  - Kathrin Kaestner
AU  - Stephan Sommer
AU  - Colin Vance
TI  - Photovoltaics and the Solar Rebound: Evidence from Germany
AID  - 10.3368/le.070621-0077R1
DP  - 2022 Sep 19
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 070621-0077R1
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/09/14/le.070621-0077R1.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/early/2022/09/14/le.070621-0077R1.full
AB  - Recent research suggests that households increase their electricity consumption after installing photovoltaic (PV) panels, a behavioral change commonly referred to as the solar rebound. Using panel data originating from the German Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS), we investigate the existence of a solar rebound effect. Our empirical results suggest that PV panel adoption does not change the amount of electricity that households take from the grid. As we derive theoretically, this implies a solar rebound that is bounded from above by about 50%, while back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest a lower bound of 12% and an average solar rebound of 35%.