According to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), soft costs accounted for 63.5% of total costs of residential solar installations, 56.7% for small commercial systems ( Balance-of-System (Soft) Costs for U.S. Photovoltaic Systems, Using a Bottom-Up Approach and Installer Survey, broke down soft costs into the following categories: sales tax, supply chain costs, installer/developer profit, indirect corporate costs, transaction costs, customer acquisition, permit fee, PII labor, and installation labor. The results of this new report should come as no surprise.
