Beyond market failures: understanding the need for dedicated deployment policy for solar photovoltaic in Sweden

Abstract The urgency of decarbonization calls for a deeper understanding of photovoltaic (PV) deployment in terms of planning, acquisition, and installation, and of the justification for policies targeting these aspects. So far, energy policy for PVs has focused on financial and information-oriented policies to enhance demand but has not explicitly focused on addressing the practical activities that enable deployment. The aim of this paper is thus to identify market failures, structural system failures, and transformational system failures associated with PV deployment and assess their implications for policy. The paper provides a review of literature on PV deployment revealing challenges at various stages of the PV adoption process; and based on a survey and interviews with building owners, construction companies, and installers in Sweden, we illustrate the systemic nature of failures in current PV deployment, suggesting the need for complementary policy interventions that address institutional rather than economic and informative support. We provide examples of policy explicitly addressing the tangible deployment of PVs. To correct for ‘market failures’, we suggest, for example, reviewer ratings on public platforms, since the selection of suppliers and installers turns out to be the most crucial step in the acquisition of PVs; to address ‘structural system failures’ we suggest, for example, capacity building within municipal organizations and improved methods for architectural integration of solar systems and guidelines for deployment in historic environments; to address ‘transformational system failures’ we suggest, for example, a legal framework supporting connection to the grid.