In recent years, multiple studies have documented deep racial inequalities in the distribution of rooftop solar. Such inequalities threaten to slow the fight against climate change and deepen existing energy inequality. Few studies have attempted to investigate the roots of these gaps. One such study, Dorsey and Wolfson (2024) argue that a majority of this gap (63%) is due to differences in demand between Black and White households. However, in line with shortcomings the authors themselves acknowledge, I argue that this approach potentially falls short on two fronts (1) It uses a subset of the population that is plausibly nonrepresentative and (2) It imputes rather than directly observes racial status. In this letter, I use original survey data (n = 1,600) that corrects for both of these factors. I find that racial patterns in consumer demand cannot explain the gaps in installation we observe: indeed, Americans of color are as or more pro-solar than White Americans. This is a simple finding but an important one, as it shifts the responsibility for racial solar inequality away from Americans of color and toward the supply side of the market.
