Summary

The purpose of this monthly report is to track consumer concerns with their utility in regard to preventing outages during severe weather events, consumer interest in home generation sources such as solar, energy storage, or generators, and consumer likelihood to seek information from their utility about solar solutions. The results of the analysis are presented by age, U.S. region, and gender. The data in this report was collected at the end of August 2021.

The supporting data and figures in this report can be found in the accompanying file

Source

The data and graphics in this report are from Zpryme’s monthly and quarterly consumer benchmarking surveys. Data is based upon a nationally representative survey sample of 1,000 U.S. adults (margin of error: +/- 3.5%).

Highlights

• Over one-fourth of the respondents (27.5%) said they had a high concern level with their utilities about power outages during storms, with males exhibiting more high concern (30.2%) than females (25.0%).
• Those most likely to purchase a DER were males, living in the midwest, and 45-54 years old. 18.1% said they were likely to seek information about solar power from their utility.
• A review of findings from March to August 2021 revealed a relatively steady number of respondents with high concern levels about power outages, ranging between 23.6% to 27.9%. However, the region with the greatest level of high concern shifted from a high of 43.2% for the northeast (July 2021) and dropped to 30.9% for the south (August 2021). Likeliness of purchasing a DER increased from 10.2% (July) to 14.7% (August). The likeliness of seeking solar information from utilities is relatively stable (ranging from 17.9% to 19.2%).