NEW S.D. PROGRAM OFFERS FREE SOLAR INSTALLATIONS IF HOMEOWNERS QUALIFY
Distribution of $1M per year to help residents with lower incomes
The city of San Diego, SDG&E and Center for Sustainable Energy on Tuesday unveiled the San Diego Solar Equity Program, which will install solar energy systems at little or no cost to lower-to-moderate income homeowners who live in areas disproportionately affected by climate impacts.
The program was created by one of the provisions of a controversial franchise agreement signed last year between the city and San Diego Gas & Electric. Adding the solar project helped push the 20-year extension across the finish line.
“I think the most important part of this is that it will help many families drive down their costs at their homes who otherwise can’t afford it,” said City Councilmember Raul Campillo, who negotiated with the city and SDG&E last year to help devise the plan.
The program will distribute $1 million per year for the next 10 years to cover 100 percent of installation costs for systems up to 6.5 kilowatts at $4 per watt. The initiative will also pay up to $3,500 to upgrade existing electrical panels so that property owners can add solar to their homes.
The money will come from SDG&E shareholders, not from utility ratepayers’ bills.
The program will be administered by the Center for Sustainable Energy, a nonprofit based in San Diego that oversees clean energy projects in seven states, including California’s rebate program for zero-emission and plug-in hybrids.
Who qualifies for the program?
To be eligible for the San Diego Solar Equity Program, applicants must be residents of the city of San Diego and live in an area with very low, low or moderate access to socioeconomic opportunities, as defined by the city’s Climate Equity Index.
Some 60 percent of the program’s funding will go to residents who make 80 percent or less of the median income in San Diego. The income levels range according to the number of people in a household. For a family of four, for example, that comes to $104,100 or lower. For a single person that comes to $72,900 or lower.
Then 20 percent goes to residents who make between 80 percent to 100 percent of median income, which goes as high as $106,990 for a family of four.
And the remaining 20 percent will be distributed among residents earning between 100 percent and 120 percent of San Diego’s median income level. For a family of four, that goes up to $128,300.
“So workforce jobs, middle-income families that otherwise don’t have the savings to invest in solar panels will be eligible for this as well,” Campillo said.
Single-family homes are eligible and so are duplexes, quadplexes and manufactured homes.
Other requirements include:
• The solar energy system must be owned by the customer.
• Any solar companies taking part must hold an active license with the California Contractors State License Board.
• Contractors must pay prevailing wages to all installers.
• Contractors must consult with homeowners on their energy needs and help them with the required paperwork.
The Center for Sustainable Energy will start taking applications in September. In the meantime, potential customers and solar installers can fill out an interest form at the program’s website, sdsolarequity.org.
“The program is designed to deliver solar to the rooftop and fee-simple, complete ownership at little or no cost to the resident,” said Lawrence Goldenhersh, the center’s president. “You’ve got to be a homeowner, you can’t be a renter.”
Once the $1 million annual budget is exhausted, the program will not disburse any more funds for that year. Goldenhersh estimated that $1 million would translate to about 40 families receiving full solar installations under the first year of the program.
What’s a franchise agreement?
Under a franchise agreement, a municipality allows a utility to use the public right-of-way to install and maintain infrastructure — such as poles, wires and pipes — to deliver power to customers.
In May 2021, the San Diego City Council voted 6-3 to extend the city’s contract with SDG&E by agreeing to what Mayor Todd Gloria called a “10-plus-10” pact that would run for 10 years and have an automatic renewal for another 10 years.
It came after months of debate and charges by some critics that the city wasn’t driving a hard enough bargain with SDG&E, which has held the franchise for more than a century.
Under the new terms of the 20-year extension, if the city is unhappy “for any reason” with SDG&E, it has a window to void the 10-year automatic renewal, provided a two-thirds vote of the City Council agrees. The extension can also be nullified if the city decides to pursue creating its own municipally run power company or if it determines a breach of the agreement has occurred.
SDG&E agreed to pay the city $80 million — $70 million for the electric franchise and $10 million for the gas franchise — and $20 million to help advance the city’s climate equity goals, which included money to build parks, plant trees and improve public transit in lowerincome areas.
On top of that, the utility created the $10 million solar rebate program that was announced at a news conference Tuesday.
“We need to make sure that the clean energy transition is equitable,” said Caroline Winn, SDG&E’s CEO. “It’s important for the public and private sectors to really work together to offer programs that will enable a greater number of residents to really benefit from the energy transition.”
The rebate program rollout comes as the state’s utilities and solar industry await a vote from the California Public Utilities Commission on Net Energy Metering — the rules regarding the financial credits that rooftop solar customers receive when their systems generate more energy than they consume.
The state’s power companies have long lobbied to change the rules, saying customers who don’t have solar pay a larger proportion of the fixed costs to run the electric grid than those who do. The solar industry disputes this argument and says the utilities feel threatened by the growth of distributed energy sources because it upends their business model.