Solar on New Homes

In addition to the expanded rebate program and net metering, another cornerstone of California’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative is the goal of building half of all new homes with solar panels by 2017. This goal was established by the legislature via the Million Solar Roofs Bill, (SB 1), as a primary way to lower the cost of solar power, create a more mainstream market for solar power and build more a more energy independent and sustainable California.

Currently, around 130,000 single family homes and an additional 50,000-70,000 multi-family homes are built each year in California.[1] Despite the construction of several large all-solar housing projects in northern and southern parts of the state, less than 5 percent of California’s new homes include solar energy systems as an option and even fewer homes come with solar power as a standard built-in feature.[2]

In order to achieve the goal of the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, the Legislature created the nation’s first-ever solar mandate requiring that by 2011 all new homes built as part of a commercially developed housing project of 50 homes or more, come with solar power as a standard option.[3] Such a mandate gives homebuyers the choice to add solar panels to their home during construction, much the way consumers are given the choice of adding marble or granite countertops to their new kitchen.

In addition to making the systems available, the sellers of these homes must give consumers important, California Energy Commission-derived information about solar power such as the pay back, efficacy and environmental benefits.

While stopping short of a mandate that solar power be a standard feature of new homes, this standard option mandate is expected to increase the number of solar homes built in California and is a first step toward building half of all new homes with solar power and making this technology a mainstream energy resource within the next decade.