It’s not easy bein’ green, according to Kermit the Frog. But that’s what California is hoping its residents will be with its new solar panel law that the Lompoc City Council officially adopted on Sept. 1.
Passed into state law in September 2014, Assembly Bill 2188 mandates that cities in California streamline the process of getting a permit to install rooftop solar installations.
The bill, which requires cities to implement the process by this month, allows residents in Lompoc to receive a permit simply by submitting plans along with a checklist.
At the City Council meeting, Lompoc Fire Chief Kurt Latipow said he was given an opportunity by the League of California Cities to give some input but it was largely ignored.
His specific concern is that it may be too easy for a resident to get a permit. All they have to do is simply devise any plan for a solar energy system and they can get it approved, as long as the checklist is attached and signed. Plans and checklists are being accepted via the Internet, fax, and email, according to Latipow. He added that the city will be switching to an online plan submittal process for large projects by the end of the year.
With a streamlined process, the city is compelled to accept the plans, Latipow said. This may sound great for residents, but the process for getting a permit could take longer than expected if the setup doesn’t meet requirements.
“The bill doesn’t give us ample time to give a good plan check,” Latipow told the Sun. “If we get out there and it’s installed wrong, they have to take it apart and reinstall it. In my opinion, it would take longer than it would take to give a plan check.”
The setups have to meet some requirements, such as having 3 feet of clearance on all sides of the panels so that firefighters are able to reach a house’s rooftop in the event of a fire.
“The bill sped it up to the point where they can’t do quality control on the front side,” Latipow said. “We always look at ourselves as quality control.”
Latipow thinks the bill isn’t necessary for a community the size of Lompoc, where he said the turnaround time for issuing solar permits is fairly quick. Despite his concerns, Latipow asked the council to adopt the ordinance because all cities in the state are required to do so before Sept. 30.
Anyone submitting a plan will be charged a 20 percent fee based on the plan’s valuation (determined by a licensed solar contractor), to the fire department, and it includes a plan review and site review. It’s not a lot of money, usually around $25, according to Lompoc Fire Marshal Dina Foose.
At the meeting, Mayor Bob Lingl said there was a rumor going around that the city stopped giving out permits, causing the cancelation of several orders for solar panels at Home Depot. Latipow clarified this, saying the rumor wasn’t true, and that his department recently issued two permits in the last week of August.
Having solar panels will no doubt save residents some money on their electric bills, but is the cost worth it? The average cost of installing a 5 kW system will run in the range of $20,000. Not only that, but residents won’t be able to sell any surplus back to the city’s grid. That’s because Lompoc no longer offers a solar net energy metering.
Solar net energy metering gives residents the option to sell extra energy produced by solar panels in exchange for a credit on their electric bills and only pay for more electricity than what their system produces.
Net energy metering (NEM) came into existence with the signing of AB 327 by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2013.
Residents can effectively lower the cost of their electricity consumption to the point of costing zero dollars, but someone still needs to pay for connecting the grid to individual systems—the wires, the meter, etc. Lompoc, being its own electric utility (one of a handful of cities in California that have this distinction), offered a G-1 billing rate for residents with solar panels where they paid 10 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), thereby offsetting the cost of system maintenance, according to Lompoc Director of Utilities Larry Bean.
“Anyone can build solar and not pay electricity,” Bean said, “but what about the people who don’t have solar?”
The signing of AB 327 didn’t come without a warning from Gov. Brown, who wanted to make sure that NEM was available for years to come, according to greentechmedia.com in October 2013.
By law, Lompoc was required to outsource 5 percent of its peak demand for electricity to solar power, which is around 25 megawatts at Christmas time, according to Bean. Lompoc reached its solar NEM requirements on June 17, 2014, according to Jennifer Main, the city’s acting utility conservation coordinator. This means that residents are producing roughly 5 megawatts of power.
Even without having the option to sell energy back, Main said the city still offers rebates for solar energy systems at $1 per watt.
The high cost of solar and the inescapable dependence of utility bills is holding some back, like 36-year-old Eric Price, who doesn’t have a lot of money to spare on a rooftop solar power system. But let’s talk the benefits. For a solar power system with energy-saving appliances and a mindset to conserve electricity, Price said we could practically live off the grid.
One of the most expensive parts of a solar energy system is the battery pack, according to Price, who also thinks the city isn’t living up to its truest green potential.
“I think it’s great that Lompoc has met the state obligation,” Price said. “But they still use the florescent light bulbs in City Hall.”
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 10-17, 2015.