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Published on December 6th, 2009 | by Susan Kraemer

22

Rooftop Solar = 4% of Sonoma County's Power!

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December 6th, 2009 by  

This is staggering. In just over six months; Sonoma County’s Energy Independence Program has received 375 applications for more than $17 million worth of solar loans. Since Sonoma County went live with its PACE model of solar funding in March; applications have been pouring in daily, and the county intends to make loans indefinitely by packaging them as bonds.

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“There is no end in sight,” said Amy Bolten, a county spokeswoman. “We think our program is just getting going.” And this is in addition to the county’s already very high solar adoption.

PG&E’s Jana Morris said that Sonoma County now has 25 solar megawatts online – 4% of Sonoma County’s power demand, among 2,492 total solar installations.

Since there are no utility-scale solar power plants in Sonoma County, this means that the county has hit an incredible 4% solar penetration, just from “distributed” solar. That is, just off of home rooftops; private yards, industrial buildings and parking lots. And under PACE; this is due for takeoff.

Sonoma County’s Energy Independence Program; the first to go county-wide in California, allows property owners to borrow to install solar without needing to qualify for a bank loan. Instead, the county fronts the money and the property owner repays the county through their own property tax payments over five to 20 years at about 7% interest.

County assessor Rod Dole, a central player in the program, said: “This program pays for itself” when he rolled out the program earlier this year. Residential applicants don’t need approval from their mortgage holders. Commercial applicants do have to give their bankers a chance to make a better deal. The county interest charged is a relatively steep 7%. The object is to make it easy to get green projects funded, not to steal bank customers, Dole said.

The concept was first tried in Berkeley First, a small 40 homeowner pilot project that sold out in the first nine minutes. A number of other cities, counties and states are developing similar PACE legislation. You can find out how far along your city or county is on developing solar property-assessed clean energy (PACE) financing at 1Block Off the grid; which also helps neighborhoods negotiate group discounts for solar.

While there is language supporting this kind of tax assessment bond financing in Waxman-Markey (section 294: pdf) the House version of the Senate climate bill, Joe Biden’s Recovery Through Retrofit appears to have just died at a fossilized department of the Department of Energy where funding was refused a month after the unveiling.

Somebody ought to call Joe Biden and let him know how successful this next stage has been. He has said he wants to make municipal solar  funding available nationally in Recovery Through Retrofit.

He’s looking for job-growing ideas. Getting $17 million worth of solar projects going in just over six months sounds like that to me!

Image: Solar Fair

Source: LCEA

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About the Author

writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times.    Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.


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  • Susan Kraemer

    Saw this this morning “Say you install, on your home, a 5-kilowatt system,” said Steve Weisman, director of the Solar Energy Business Association of New England. “A home with a 5-kilowatt system in New England can expect, based on a predictable amount of sunshine, to operate at 15 percent capacity, or to produce around 6,570 kilowatt hours a year.”

    That’s less output for a 5 KW system than California, but that’s enough to cover my annual kwh needs. But if trees, yeah, you’re outta luck.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Saw this this morning “Say you install, on your home, a 5-kilowatt system,” said Steve Weisman, director of the Solar Energy Business Association of New England. “A home with a 5-kilowatt system in New England can expect, based on a predictable amount of sunshine, to operate at 15 percent capacity, or to produce around 6,570 kilowatt hours a year.”

    That’s less output for a 5 KW system than California, but that’s enough to cover my annual kwh needs. But if trees, yeah, you’re outta luck.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Saw this this morning “Say you install, on your home, a 5-kilowatt system,” said Steve Weisman, director of the Solar Energy Business Association of New England. “A home with a 5-kilowatt system in New England can expect, based on a predictable amount of sunshine, to operate at 15 percent capacity, or to produce around 6,570 kilowatt hours a year.”

    That’s less output for a 5 KW system than California, but that’s enough to cover my annual kwh needs. But if trees, yeah, you’re outta luck.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Yes, there is no reason not to be grid tied in Sonoma, it’s not off-grid.

    Don’t worry: PG&E/solar installation companies here are capable of handling the technical side – PG&E is aiming to get to 3.5% of the whole state’s power coming off rooftops: that’s the limit that’s set for now with the CPUC, and may be raised.

    Plus most of these are just homes with like a 4 KW system each. If it does go nationwide, you should get a quote anyway, for the heck of it. Estimates are free, and even in New England you could probably swap your utility bill for an equal sum to the solar mortgage.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Yes, there is no reason not to be grid tied in Sonoma, it’s not off-grid.

    Don’t worry: PG&E/solar installation companies here are capable of handling the technical side – PG&E is aiming to get to 3.5% of the whole state’s power coming off rooftops: that’s the limit that’s set for now with the CPUC, and may be raised.

    Plus most of these are just homes with like a 4 KW system each. If it does go nationwide, you should get a quote anyway, for the heck of it. Estimates are free, and even in New England you could probably swap your utility bill for an equal sum to the solar mortgage.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Yes, there is no reason not to be grid tied in Sonoma, it’s not off-grid.

    Don’t worry: PG&E/solar installation companies here are capable of handling the technical side – PG&E is aiming to get to 3.5% of the whole state’s power coming off rooftops: that’s the limit that’s set for now with the CPUC, and may be raised.

    Plus most of these are just homes with like a 4 KW system each. If it does go nationwide, you should get a quote anyway, for the heck of it. Estimates are free, and even in New England you could probably swap your utility bill for an equal sum to the solar mortgage.

  • JJ

    If thats what PGE says, then I’m sure it will get there.

    Yeh I already know what my solar looks like, no sun for half the year literally and probably too much tree cover too. Still I’d prefer to go DIY (give my jobs to me) and go half off grid for electronics & lighting load and not mess with the tie in or intermittent high amp load. Over here we need to pay more attention to thermal issues.

  • JJ

    If thats what PGE says, then I’m sure it will get there.

    Yeh I already know what my solar looks like, no sun for half the year literally and probably too much tree cover too. Still I’d prefer to go DIY (give my jobs to me) and go half off grid for electronics & lighting load and not mess with the tie in or intermittent high amp load. Over here we need to pay more attention to thermal issues.

  • JJ

    If thats what PGE says, then I’m sure it will get there.

    Yeh I already know what my solar looks like, no sun for half the year literally and probably too much tree cover too. Still I’d prefer to go DIY (give my jobs to me) and go half off grid for electronics & lighting load and not mess with the tie in or intermittent high amp load. Over here we need to pay more attention to thermal issues.

  • JJ

    If thats what PGE says, then I’m sure it will get there.

    Yeh I already know what my solar looks like, no sun for half the year literally and probably too much tree cover too. Still I’d prefer to go DIY (give my jobs to me) and go half off grid for electronics & lighting load and not mess with the tie in or intermittent high amp load. Over here we need to pay more attention to thermal issues.

  • JJ

    Are these systems grid tied? If so then the utility had better be able to handle that high a percentage of grid ties.

    I don’t think many people understand some of the details the utilities actually face in keeping the power in frequency lock and power factoring. We consume Watts, but they deliver VAs typically somewhat higher than Watts. If the tie ins only deliver Watts, the utility has to work even harder to correct the grid. It really needs to be in control of those inverters so they do as the grid needs which would then allow to go much higher than 1% tie in. However each PV system would then look somewhat weaker measured in VA output rather than Watts.

    Maybe they should just drop the capital repayment part and do a permanent lease and then include the eventual replacement and repair of hardware. That way the utility is still in the loop but owns all of the problems. If all the panels are grid tied, then the utility effectively has a solar PV plant but on other folks land. You still pay for electricity but you know it comes off the roof.

    Not sure that it needs to go nationwide, we just don’t get so much sun here in New England.

  • JJ

    Are these systems grid tied? If so then the utility had better be able to handle that high a percentage of grid ties.

    I don’t think many people understand some of the details the utilities actually face in keeping the power in frequency lock and power factoring. We consume Watts, but they deliver VAs typically somewhat higher than Watts. If the tie ins only deliver Watts, the utility has to work even harder to correct the grid. It really needs to be in control of those inverters so they do as the grid needs which would then allow to go much higher than 1% tie in. However each PV system would then look somewhat weaker measured in VA output rather than Watts.

    Maybe they should just drop the capital repayment part and do a permanent lease and then include the eventual replacement and repair of hardware. That way the utility is still in the loop but owns all of the problems. If all the panels are grid tied, then the utility effectively has a solar PV plant but on other folks land. You still pay for electricity but you know it comes off the roof.

    Not sure that it needs to go nationwide, we just don’t get so much sun here in New England.

  • JJ

    Are these systems grid tied? If so then the utility had better be able to handle that high a percentage of grid ties.

    I don’t think many people understand some of the details the utilities actually face in keeping the power in frequency lock and power factoring. We consume Watts, but they deliver VAs typically somewhat higher than Watts. If the tie ins only deliver Watts, the utility has to work even harder to correct the grid. It really needs to be in control of those inverters so they do as the grid needs which would then allow to go much higher than 1% tie in. However each PV system would then look somewhat weaker measured in VA output rather than Watts.

    Maybe they should just drop the capital repayment part and do a permanent lease and then include the eventual replacement and repair of hardware. That way the utility is still in the loop but owns all of the problems. If all the panels are grid tied, then the utility effectively has a solar PV plant but on other folks land. You still pay for electricity but you know it comes off the roof.

    Not sure that it needs to go nationwide, we just don’t get so much sun here in New England.

  • JJ

    Are these systems grid tied? If so then the utility had better be able to handle that high a percentage of grid ties.

    I don’t think many people understand some of the details the utilities actually face in keeping the power in frequency lock and power factoring. We consume Watts, but they deliver VAs typically somewhat higher than Watts. If the tie ins only deliver Watts, the utility has to work even harder to correct the grid. It really needs to be in control of those inverters so they do as the grid needs which would then allow to go much higher than 1% tie in. However each PV system would then look somewhat weaker measured in VA output rather than Watts.

    Maybe they should just drop the capital repayment part and do a permanent lease and then include the eventual replacement and repair of hardware. That way the utility is still in the loop but owns all of the problems. If all the panels are grid tied, then the utility effectively has a solar PV plant but on other folks land. You still pay for electricity but you know it comes off the roof.

    Not sure that it needs to go nationwide, we just don’t get so much sun here in New England.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Yes, there is no reason not to be grid tied in Sonoma, it’s not off-grid.

    Don’t worry: PG&E/solar installation companies here are capable of handling the technical side – PG&E is aiming to get to 3.5% of the whole state’s power coming off rooftops: that’s the limit that’s set for now with the CPUC, and may be raised.

    Plus most of these are just homes with like a 4 KW system each. If it does go nationwide, you should get a quote anyway, for the heck of it. Estimates are free, and even in New England you could probably swap your utility bill for an equal sum to the solar mortgage.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Well-said.

    Plus it eliminates the red tape of going to the bank and seeing what your credit rating is.

    Because the payments are embedded in the home’s property tax payments, even if God forbid, you lose your house; the next owner takes over the property tax payments, and has no electricity bill, of course!

  • Susan Kraemer

    Well-said.

    Plus it eliminates the red tape of going to the bank and seeing what your credit rating is.

    Because the payments are embedded in the home’s property tax payments, even if God forbid, you lose your house; the next owner takes over the property tax payments, and has no electricity bill, of course!

  • Susan Kraemer

    Well-said.

    Plus it eliminates the red tape of going to the bank and seeing what your credit rating is.

    Because the payments are embedded in the home’s property tax payments, even if God forbid, you lose your house; the next owner takes over the property tax payments, and has no electricity bill, of course!

  • http://GlobalPatriot.com Global Patriot

    Sonoma County has always been progressive when it comes to respecting the environment, as they are keen to keep the area’s natural setting intact.

    The program mentioned, which allows property owners to repay solar-related loans through their property tax payments, is one that should be adopted nationwide.

    It allows individuals to make a difference by supporting renewable energy sources without any sort of government mandate or red tape overhead.

  • http://GlobalPatriot.com Global Patriot

    Sonoma County has always been progressive when it comes to respecting the environment, as they are keen to keep the area’s natural setting intact.

    The program mentioned, which allows property owners to repay solar-related loans through their property tax payments, is one that should be adopted nationwide.

    It allows individuals to make a difference by supporting renewable energy sources without any sort of government mandate or red tape overhead.

  • http://GlobalPatriot.com Global Patriot

    Sonoma County has always been progressive when it comes to respecting the environment, as they are keen to keep the area’s natural setting intact.

    The program mentioned, which allows property owners to repay solar-related loans through their property tax payments, is one that should be adopted nationwide.

    It allows individuals to make a difference by supporting renewable energy sources without any sort of government mandate or red tape overhead.

  • Susan Kraemer

    Well-said.

    Plus it eliminates the red tape of going to the bank and seeing what your credit rating is.

    Because the payments are embedded in the home’s property tax payments, even if God forbid, you lose your house; the next owner takes over the property tax payments, and has no electricity bill, of course!

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