The Survey was conducted through SurveyMonkey from February 6 to March 3,2023. Respondents were invited to participate via email and public social media posts rom Solar Reviews and NABCEP. In all, almost 450 participants from companies across the industry submitted responses, with the following breakdown of primary business activity:
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The Survey used branching log to ensure respondents were presented with relevant questions, with specific branches for residential/small commercial solar installers and energy storage installers. Installers were asked to report their total kilowatts (kW) of installed capacity in 2022. That data was normalized to remove outliers and then used to weight responses to other questions related to proportions, such as the percentage of various payment methods, customer demographics, and installation types.
Responses came from comes all across the country, with the majority of respondents doing most of their business in just seven states: California. Texas, Florida, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Arizonan. At least one respondent reported operations in each of the 50 U.S. States, Washington DC. and Puerto Rico.
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Top Solar Brands
If price is no object, installers opt for brands that are proven to perform well, have a good warranty, and have a great reputation. These factors were most important to installers when choosing equipment:
- Performance and Quality.
- Brand Name and Reputation.
- Product Availability.
What’s not as important? Customer requests. On average, only 18% of customer requests specific brand of solar panel or inverter. This is likely because customers rely on installers to be the experts. Few customers know about solar brands or their performance and rely on their installers to choose the best option.
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Top Solar Panel Brands
In the year of supply chain disruptions, it was rare for solar installers to rely on a single brand of solar panels. 83% of respondents said they installed at least two brands, with an average of 3.6 brands per installer. Module prices were up as 93% of installers reported paying more in 2022 than in 2021.
Qcells was the most popular solar brand in 2022, used by 66 of installers in our survey.
With its recent announcements of stateside manufacturing expansions and domestic silicon sourcing, the Korean company looks poised to build on its already strong performance.
REC came in second this year, with 41% of installers offering its products. In total 31% of installers offered both Qcells and REC products to customers, Rounding out the top five brands this year are Canadian Solar, Silfab and Jinko.
Top Inverter Brands
Enphase and SolarEdge have long dominated the inverter market, largely because of their compliance with National Electric Code (NEC) rapid shutdown requirements. 2022 was no different, with 74% of installers choosing Enphase and 60% going with SolarEdge. 44% of respondents install both of these top brands.
Although 75% of installers worked with at least two inverter brands, the rest preferred to stick with a single supplier. Of the quarter of the industry that only uses one brand, 58% are loyal to Enphase and 27% only offer SolarEdge.
Sol-Ark SMA Fronius, and Generac were also chosen by respondents but didn’t come close to Enphase or SolarEdge.
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