Orange County and Inland Empire residents pay attention: As a region you are behind in the renewable energy times.  Say we measure regional adoption of solar as a staircase with 10 steps.  Step 1 means no one has gone solar in your area, step 10 means lots of people have gone solar in your area.  Bay Area residents would be sitting on step 7, while SoCal residents who have Southern California Edison (SCE) as their utility provider would be chillin’ three steps behind on step 4!

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the California State Assembly passed AB 510, a bill to increase the cap on net metering for California residents. 

Basically, net metering works like this:

• When utility customers are using energy from the grid, their meters spin forward.
• When customers use energy they have generated from their solar panels, the meter spins backward.
• Customers are then only charged for the net amount of grid energy used.
• If this bill is signed, customers will be able to do only pay the net amount until 5% of the utility’s peak demand is reached.

If Governor Schwarzenegger signs this bill, which we hope he will do, this new bill will become law.  Currently, net metering is capped at 2.5%.  This bill would double that cap to 5%.

This is good news for anyone considering solar.  Being able to decrease energy bills and save money makes solar more attractive and affordable for homeowners.  With the continued government support of clean energy and energy efficiency (like the upcoming SF PACE program),  the number of California residents going solar is sure to increase!

Great news for Californian 1BOG members! In early October 2009, Governor Schwartzenegger signed a bill that requires utilities to pay for extra electricity that consumers feed back into the grid. That means, if your home solar panels produce more electricity than you’re using, your local utility will pay you cash or assign credits that you can redeem when needed.

What does this mean?

1) California is helping more people take the plunge to go solar by not just saving money on electricity, but paying cash for the power they generate

2) For people who already have solar panels, this bill discourages wasteful consumption of energy. Knowing that their extra energy will not be “lost” to the utility, solar home and business owners will conserve resources and be compensated fairly.

Under current net metering rules, give consumers a credit on their monthly bill that can be used to offset higher energy consumption at other times of the year — like the winter months. But at the end of the year, any leftover credits are zeroed out. When AB 920 comes into effect, utilities will either pay homeowners for the extra power, or they will roll the credit over to the next year. Rates will be determined by the California Public Utilities Commission, and will likely be below retail.

Authored by Assembly member Jared Huffman, the AB 920 bill, known as the California Solar Surplus Act of 2009, goes into effect January 1st, 2010. Creating a fair incentive structure within California’s solar market is a huge plus for California’s environment and economy and an important shift toward more pro-solar legislation in the future.

Palm Desert is fast becoming a model of electricity savings in California and across the nation.

Assembly Bill 811 allows city governments in California to provide loans to property owners planning home or business improvements that will reduce energy consumption. The bill, termed locally the Energy Independence Act, was written and lobbied for by Palm Desert’s civic leaders.

The Energy Independence Program has led to Palm Desert making significant headway towards reaching its goal of cutting energy consumption by 30 percent—or 215 million kilowatt hours of electric energy—in five years.

One of the ways Palm Desert is realizing this goal is through encouraging residential solar: the county has given $7.5 million in loans (and counting) to help residents improve their energy efficiency. The city will provide loans for as little as $5,000, with an upper limit of $30,000, for various home-improvements that will reduce electricity consumption, including installation of solar panels. Home solar systems last up to 40 years, so the Energy Independence Act allows homeowners to finance systems – using the good credit of the city – with long-term loans to match the long-term benefits of solar.

In the summer months, when temperatures regularly reach over 100 degrees, Palm Desert residents can pay up to $1000 a month for electricity. While high temperatures mean high energy bills, they also mean that Palm Desert is an ideal spot for solar: with 350 days of sunshine each year and an average of 5.5 hours of high-quality solar insulation per day, the city far outperforms the national average.

A fringe benefit of Palm Desert’s eco-friendly ways has been new jobs: the city’s list of solar-panel contractors has swelled to 22—up from three just a year ago.

Palm Desert, under the Energy Independence Program, has taken various measures towards greater energy efficiency measures: The city has built a WalMart that runs on solar energy, waived permit fees on the installation of photovoltaic solar systems in homes and businesses passed a law requiring all new construction to surpass state energy requirements by 10 to 15 percent, employs energy auditors who will go to residents’ homes—for free—and give suggestions on how to save energy and money, and banned drive-through restaurants. It has added zero-emission cars and Segways to its municipal fleet, declared electric golf carts street-legal, gives out free LED holiday lights, and built a LEED-certified visitor center and LEED-certified community center.

Thanks to these measures and more, Palm Desert has been named by the Natural Resources Defense Council as one of nine cities on the leading edge of energy efficiency. Councilman Flanigan, who spearheaded the passage of the Energy Independence Program, said of Palm Desert: “I really salute their leaders for having the creativity and foresight to change state law in this historic way, and now for approving a hugely consumer-friendly program.” Additionally, he stated that classifying the “reduction of a city’s energy consumption and carbon footprint as ‘public good,’ [as Palm Desert has done] is a groundbreaking approach, and opens the door for cities across the state to adopt similar programs.”

For more information on the forward-thinking Energy Independence Program in Palm Desert, visit: http://www.cityofpalmdesert.org/Index.aspx?page=304

Coming soon: 1BOG will be launching a solar city program in Palm Desert in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Which has to go? The Tree or the Energy Production?

A solar easement is a right to sunlight. It is a restriction that attaches to your neighbor’s property, prohibiting anything on their property from blocking the sunlight reaching your property. While a problem with access to sunlight may never arise, anyone thinking about installing solar panels should consider trying to get a solar easement from their neighbors who could potentially block their access to sunlight.

In a few years, that tree that your neighbors just planted may shade the solar panels that you just invested in, or your neighbors may decide to sell their property to someone who wants to construct a 9 story condo building.

If you are able to get your neighbor to grant a solar easement, make sure that you get the easement in writing, signed and attached to the deed of your neighbor’s property. You will also want to record the easement with your city so that potential purchasers are on notice that there is an easement on the property. You don’t necessarily need an attorney to write up a solar easement, but you do want to make sure that it is explicit and as specific as necessary to ensure that you continue to have access to adequate sunlight in the future.

States that Allow Solar Easement

Many states recognize solar easements and will enforce them. However, solar easements must be granted by your neighbor. Neighbors may be hesitant to grant an easement over their property. The restriction not only limits their ability to use the property, but may reduce the value of their property because the restriction would apply to any purchaser of the property. Nonetheless, you never know until you ask. Some neighbors may be happy to plant a smaller tree, build that second story in a slightly different way, or make other small concessions to help out a neighbor or promote sustainable energy practices. For more hesitant neighbors, you may consider compensating them for the easement (a small investment now may avoid a potentially huge headache later).

A Feed-in Tariff (FIT) is the reason that Germany, a small country with very little sun, crushes the US in the amount of installed solar energy.  Our electrical grid is practically third world caliber.   A feed-in tariff would put pressure on it in ways that it’s not ready for, which is why we haven’t done it here yet.  PG&E is extremely progressive on these types of things, and I believe their reason for not doing a feed in tariff yet is because of the sensitivities that the grid.  See, right now, customers are only incentivized to offset their current load.  It doesn’t make financial sense to put in a solar system that is bigger than what is required for your home.  But let’s say you had an acre of a backyard, you used very little power, and now a reasonable feed-in tariff existed.  You might fill up you entire backyard.  Five people on the block do that and now you’ve got some transformers popping and some unhappy utilities.  We can get there but we’ll need some smart grid infrastructure to go with it…

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is that I noticed that the state is working on a feed-in tariff, California state bill AB1106, which would require investor-owned utilities to pay for renewable electrical generation from any customer at a rate set by the CPUC.  They already have a feed-in tariff in Gainesville, FL and as more of the programs develop we will track them in a new resource similar to the map we have for AB811 or municipal financing for solar energy and home energy improvements (the property tax financing stuff you’ve heard about such as Berkeley First).  So keep your eyes peeled.

Update: 5/15/09 apparently Georgia has one too from a comment on our blog:

Georgia Power also has a feed-in tariff (they call it a “buy-back” rate). Currently the rate is $0.1774/kWh generated by solar, measured with a single-direction, outgoing meter. It’s limited, but it’s there.
http://www.georgiapower.com/pricing/pdf/11.10_RNR-4.pdf

From our friends at VoteSolar.org:

“Friends,

The sun came up this morning, ready to help.  How about Congress?

Congress is in the midst of debating an economic recovery bill that could funnel billions towards jumpstarting our domestic renewable energy economy.  Can you take action to make sure that the solar provisions are as strong as possible?

Since solar creates more jobs per megawatt than other energy resources and projects can be up and running within months, it is an obvious economic recovery tool.  Last week, the House passed a version of the stimulus bill with $32 billion in clean energy funding.  This week, the Senate takes up the debate, and the current Senate version of the recovery bill is missing several key solar provisions. Our friends at the Solar Energy Industries Association have put together a handy guide detailing the solar provisions that need to be included in The Recovery Act. Check it out here.

If added to the final bill, these solar provisions-from a renewable energy grant program, to putting solar on federal buildings to a manufacturing tax credit–will help create close to 200,000 new jobs and install 3 gigawatts of solar over the next 2 years.

Take action here.

Onwards,

Annie + Vote Solar Team

One additional note: for those that took our last action alert asking for a tweak to the federal tax code to allow for municipal property tax financing programs, we are pleased to report that the requested adjustment made it into both the House and Senate versions.  You did that.  Good work.

The Vote Solar Initiative
www.votesolar.org

“

We at 1 Block Off the Grid are pleased to see movement on renewing the solar investment tax credit. This program has been instrumental in driving and accelerating solar to date. Combining the Federal, state and local solar incentives with the purchasing power of 1 Block Off the Grid makes solar more accessible. Please call your senator to support this bill. Learn more about how 1 Block Off the Grid works.

Senator Baucus, Chair of the Finance Committee, and Senator Reid, Majority Leader, have introduced a Senate version of the storied clean energy investment tax credit bill. It’s S3335, the Jobs, Energy, Families and Disaster Relief Act of 2008.* It contains the extensions to clean energy investment tax credits (ITC) that we’ve been promoting for so long, and it could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday July 29th.

What’s different this time, that might lead to a bill actually making it through both chambers? Well, on this occasion the document is coming from the Senate with funding provisions attached–the very issue that senators have objected to, for over a year now. This means that a lot of bipartisan shaping of the bill has been going on, to either remove provisions that senators disliked or add provisions that would switch their votes to ‘yea’ (such as tax relief for those affected by natural disasters this year). But most importantly to the House, it ensures that the clean energy tax credits can be paid for without adding to the deficit. And it means that:

• commercial and residential solar 30% ITCs will be extended for 8 years
• the residential cap on the ITC will be doubled to $4000
• corporate and individual taxpayers can claim the ITC against the AMT
• investor-owned utilities can claim the ITC directly

It sounds like there’s a good faith effort, this time, to provide sufficient ‘feel-good’ measures all around to put the dreaded filibuster to bed. We sure hope so. But to make sure, can you hit your senators one more time with an e-mail, reminding them how important this bill is to the future of solar power in America?

Following this link: Solar Nation

Enter your ZIP code and press GO to TAKE ACTION!

*For parliamentary junkies, this replaces HR6049, which was the House-originated vehicle. Assuming it passes, the language will be folded back into HR6049 for the president’s signature, because all bills containing revenue-raising measures must originate in the House.

source: Solar Nation

Supes OK Rebates for solar power systems. by Wyatt Buchanan, Wednesday, June 11, 2008

San Francisco supervisors gave final approval Tuesday to a program that will create a $3 million fund to provide rebates for residents and businesses that install solar power systems.

The supervisors also gave initial approval to another solar rebate program, sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, to create a $1.5 million fund for nonprofit organizations and low-income residents at or below the city’s median income level. That money would fund a one-year pilot program.

Under the $3 million program, sponsored by Supervisor Bevan Dufty, residents could receive between $3,000 and $6,000 for photovoltaic systems that produce at least 1 kilowatt of electricity. Businesses could receive $1,500 per kilowatt installed, with a cap of $10,000.

Dear solar supporters,

Thank you for all of your support and advocacy for the San Francisco Solar Incentive Program to date. The program has not been approved by the Board of Supervisors yet, but we are getting closer to that finish line.

This coming Tuesday, June 3, at their 2pm regularly scheduled meeting, the Board of Supervisors will take action to support or reject the solar program. The budget committee has actually forwarded three separate proposals to the full Board for a vote on Tuesday:

1) Advocates’ solar rebate proposal: This proposal, supported by the Mayor and Assessor Ting and the full range of the environmental community, has had seven hearings at the Board. As you know, it would provide between $2-5 million per year to fund solar incentives ranging from $3,000-$6,000 for residents, up to $10,000 for businesses that install solar and up to $30,000 for non-profit affordable housing. (Revenues come from the PUC power revenues– not from the City’s General Fund that goes to fund health care, police, etc.) Supervisor Dufty has signed on as sponsor of this legislation and we are advocating strongly for passage of this version of the program. Supervisor Dufty is a key ally in this effort and we are grateful for his support.

2) Supervisor Mirkarimi’s solar proposal. Rather than the full program, it creates a one-year pilot program. This program reserves $325K for affordable housing developers, for $325K for limited income households, and $750K for multi-unit and single family residential buildings. No funding is provided for commercial buildings or the greater non-profit community, thus defeating the purpose of making the incentive available to all of San Francisco’s 195,000 rooftops. Considering the pent-up demand for solar incentives over the last several months, we are concerned that the $750K for residential buildings will be used up quickly and we will back before the Board asking for more funding in a matter of weeks.

3) Supervisor McGoldrick’s solar ordinance. This ordinance prioritizes how PUC funding will be spent on solar installations, and effectively prohibits funding for incentives to local residents and businesses to install solar. This ordinance reserves all funding for publicly owned projects and non-profit housing. Considering the urgency of increasing our local renewable energy portfolio, this ordinance greatly limits funding to a very small portion of San Francisco’s rooftops that could install solar.

Considering that this is the last shot at the Board of Supervisors for approval of the program, please consider emailing, calling, or visiting the Board members and ask them to vote on the legislation that is the product of our collective efforts over the past year and a half. Their contact information can be found here:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=7271

When you do, please ask them to vote yes on the full program sponsored by Supervisor Dufty. And if you talk to Supervisor Dufty, please thank him for his sponsorship. There will be no opportunity for public comment on the proposals on Tuesday at the full Board (each has already received public comment at committee), so your feedback to the Board this week and early next week will be critical. We do encourage you to come to the meeting on Tuesday to be a visible presence supporting solar.

Thank you very much for your continued advocacy.

Office of Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting
City and County of San Francisco