Cities must cut California’s infamous red tape driving up the cost of rooftop solar | Opinion

Nicholas Josefowitz, Laura Deehan

Wed, October 16, 2024 at 5:00 AM PDT·3 min read\Cities must cut California’s infamous red tape driving up the cost of rooftop solar.

California has taken vital steps toward transitioning to clean energy. However, data released this year shows that our state’s renewable energy growth is slowing. In order to meet our climate goals, we need to generate clean electricity much more rapidly.

Rooftop solar panels, a key solution to reduce pollution and avoid high electricity rates, have unfortunately become harder to access at just the moment we need to quickly install more of them. Last year, the State of California slashed the utility bill credit for families who send solar power back to the grid by more than 70% (installations dropped by more than three-quarters as a result.

If California utilities don’t sufficiently compensate homeowners for the energy they send back to the grid, fewer families will install rooftop solar. But there is something local cities and counties can do to help: cut red tape in California that drives up the cost of rooftop solar and home battery systems.

Opinion

Families looking to install rooftop solar and storage systems often face outdated, cumbersome approval processes: slow permitting and inspection, slow homeowner association approvals and slow utility interconnection and approval. Together, these challenges can add many thousands of dollars worth of costs to a new rooftop solar system (sometimes higher than the cost of the solar panels themselves). As a result, the total cost of a rooftop solar system in California is twice that in Europe — or about $15,000 more expensive.

These slow processes can drag out a rooftop solar and home battery system for months, leading many frustrated consumers to cancel their projects.

How can we speed up and simplify solar installations while still complying with local rules and regulations?

Since issuing instant permits, some local governments have seen solar installations increase at double the rate of communities with more cumbersome permitting.

In 2022, California passed a first in the nation law requiring local governments to let families instantly receive permits for their solar and battery systems. Many local governments received funding from the state to implement the software and train staff. California set itself up to be a national example for how to cut red tape — if local governments comply with the law.

The deadline for local governments to implement instant permitting was September 30. The good news is that more than 35 million Californians are living in the 372 cities and counties that are following or taking steps to follow the law by issuing instant solar permits.

All cities and counties should do their part to help reduce pollution and ensure families can access affordable clean electricity. If they do not, California should hold them accountable. But the state also needs to go further: We need a new policy to ensure that the 14 million Californians who live in homeowners associations are not burdened by long, costly approval processes, and we need to ensure that utilities are not sitting on interconnection applications for months, preventing systems that have already been installed from being powered up.

In the face of urgent climate goals and high energy costs, there’s no time to wait for a permit.

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