Greentech Lead America: California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) cites new issues that need to be addressed to sustain the solar industry in California following the discontinuation of the rebates from California Solar Initiative (CSI) for residential solar power.
The rebates from CSI for residential solar power are going to be discontinued four years ahead of schedule. Officials and regulators are wrestling with how to continue support for consumer-scale solar and the California solar industry.
CCSE focuses on the non-incentive benefits of the CSI program that have been crucial to its success, including consumer protection, the availability of information and data, streamlined permitting and grid connection and low-income access to solar.
These issues are equally important to the future sustainability of solar in California because solar providers work across utility and municipal boundaries and because consumers need access to transparent and consistent data and information, according to CCSE.
“While the support provided to the solar industry by the CSI program’s monetary incentives are clear, the program’s indirect, non-incentive benefits have been equally important to the success of California’s distributed generation solar market,” said Sachu Constantine, CCSE policy director.
CCSE administers the CSI program for the California Public Utilities Commission in the San Diego Gas & Electric service territory, the only nonutility organization in the state to do so. CCSE began awarding CSI rebates for both residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in 2007 in what was to be a ten-year program of declining incentives as solar installations increased.
Solar has become so popular in the San Diego region that CCSE ran out of funding for residential PV systems in early 2013, however, rebates for commercial installations remain available although at rates 20 percent less than with the program began.
So far, the CSI program in San Diego has awarded more than $48 million in residential rebates and $108 million in nonresidential rebates for more than 127 megawatts of total solar generation capacity. Statewide, CSI has incentivized more than 1,544 megawatts of solar with about 200 megawatts remaining to reach the program’s goal to install 1,750 megawatts.
“Even with this tremendous success, a large potential market for residential and small commercial solar will continue to exist long after the program’s monetary incentives are exhausted,” Constantine said. “Of California’s 7.8 million single-family homes, only 2 percent have solar electric systems.”
Without further funding, the residential portion of the CSI is finished in San Diego as well as in the Southern California Edison service territory in southern and central California. The state’s largest utility provider, Pacific Gas & Electric, has amble funding to continue residential rebates.
CCSE suggests that as the CSI program ends, consideration should be given to continuing its Go Solar California! brand and website.
The CSI program currently collects data on the installation and performance of solar systems throughout the state that is critical to policymakers, regulators, industry officials and other stakeholders in making decisions related to solar power generation.
According to CCSE, this information is provided through the California Solar Statistics website and needs to be continued to provide transparency in the solar marketplace as well as a means of measuring and verifying various aspects of solar system load and impacts on the state’s utility grid.
While the CSI program has improved municipal processes for permitting solar installations and for interconnecting systems to the utility grid, considerable work remains to assure consistent processes across districts and service territories with coordination at the statewide level.
Overly complex, confusing, expensive and inconsistent permitting processes can sour customers and installers alike, inhibiting greater adoption of solar technologies, CCSE said.
The CSI program’s Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing (MASH) and Single-family Affordable Solar Housing (SASH) programs have provided access to the solar PV market directly to low- and moderate-income families for whom the primary barrier to adoption is high up-front costs and lack of access to capital.
Currently, Assembly Bill (AB) 217 proposes a continuation of those programs post-CSI, and CCSE generally support this approach.
The CCSE report concludes that a robust, centrally administered statewide program to facilitate distributed generation solar installations is the most efficient way to deliver services to customers and the solar industry after the CSI program ends.
“Without a strong statewide effort, disconnected and inconsistent processes and efforts will almost certainly result in a degraded market for residential and small-scale commercial solar and will therefore undermine California achieving its ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction goals,” said CCSE executive director Len Hering, RADM, USN (ret).