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 December 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

• Overall, 28.5% of the respondents expressed a high level of concern with their utility about power outages during storms, with the southern region having the biggest group of those with high concern (32.8%).
• Seventeen-point seven percent said they would likely purchase a DER, with about twice as many male purchasers (23.0%) as female (12.1%)
• One-fifth (20.4%) of the sample would likely ask their utility about solar power, with the northeast most likely (29.7%).
• A review of findings from March to December 2021 revealed a slight increase in high concern levels from 25.8% (November) to 28.5% (December), and a shift from the northeast to the south for those with the most high concern. A drop was noticed in those who were likely to purchase a DER from 21.2% (November) to 17.7% (December). However, the number of likely DER purchasers has stayed above 15% since September. The percentage who would ask their utility about solar power was the second largest seen (20.4%) over the past ten months, with the largest in November (26.0%).