Economic Viability of Roof Leasing for Rooftop Photovoltaic Systems from a Leasing Company’s Perspective

Abstract

Solar leasing has attracted widespread acceptance in the US, and a significant number of residential solar panels were installed through this model. In Australia, the solar leasing option was introduced in late 2012. However, this model failed to achieve a recognition mainly due to lack of awareness of the model and economic viability in relation to outright buying a rooftop photovoltaic system. One of the solar leasing models is roof rental in which a company will lease the roof of residential premises for installing rooftop photovoltaic systems and selling the generated electricity to the utility. This paper aims to evaluate various scenarios to explore an economically viable alternative for roof rental from the perspective of the engaged leasing company. To this end, an economic analysis is performed to determine the net present value from the roof rental payments and versus different ratings of rooftop photovoltaic systems, desired interest rate and existing feed-in tariff.