Returns to solar panels in the housing market: A meta learner approach

This paper aims to estimate the returns to solar panels in the UK residential housing market. Our analysis applies a causal machine learning approach to Zoopla property data containing about 5 million observations. Drawing on meta-learner algorithms, we provide strong evidence documenting that solar panels are directly capitalized into sale prices. Our results point to a selling price premium above 6% (range between 6.1% to 7.1% depending on the meta-learner) associated with solar panels. Considering that the average selling price is £230,536 in our sample, this corresponds to an additional £14,062 to £16,368 selling price premium for houses with solar panels. Our results are robust to traditional hedonic pricing models and matching techniques, with the lowest estimates at 3.5% using the latter. Despite the declining trend, the additional analyses demonstrate that the positive premium associated with solar panels persists over the years.