After Incentives End, California Rooftop Solar Power Installations Drop 85%
The forecast for California’s solar power expansion is cloudy, with a good chance of pain.
Late in 2022, I reported that
California utility regulators made significant changes to rules applied to the state’s rooftop solar market, saying that the moves will ensure solar-powered homes contribute their “fair share” to maintain the power grid. Basically, the California Public Utilities Commission ended the power buy-back scheme that was a big selling point for homeowners to purchase and maintain solar panels.
How incentivizing was that incentive? Quite…as rooftop solar power installations h
ave dropped over 80 percent, and companies are fleeing the state.
Construct Sun, a solar installation company that is based in Reno, Nev., stopped doing business in California after its sales dried up four months after the policy began; executives said the company was now focusing its efforts on Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
The forecast for California’s solar power expansion is cloudy, with a
good chance of pain. Over 17,000 solar jobs have been lost in 2023, which accounted for 22% of all solar jobs in the industry.
Laughably, David Lappen (an electrical engineer who serves on a subcommittee of the Santa Monica Commission on Sustainability, Environmental Justice and the Environment), proposes that California taxpayers continue to foot the bill for incentives as a solution to this
quite foreseeable collapse.
I can almost hear the screams about high taxes, but hear me out. If we shift support for rooftop solar from utility bills to the tax base, Californians can save on their utility bills by as much as the state pays in incentives.
Such a solution will inevitably lead to more
Californians leaving the state for another region that allows the free market to flourish and doesn’t base its policies on pseudoscience or “justice” narratives.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/...ia-rooftop-solar-power-installations-drop-85/