San Francisco’s Solar Requirement Sets a Good Example for Cities to Follow

America's cities can do far more to drive the growth of solar energy – with or without state policy support. This May, San Francisco became the first major city in the country to require solar panels on new construction of homes and businesses.

Gideon Weissman

Former Policy Analyst, Frontier Group

Rooftop solar in American cities is booming. In an analysis we conducted last year, we found 1,700 megawatts of solar capacity in just 64 cities, nearly as much solar capacity as the whole country had at the end of 2010. But most cities can still go much further: Despite huge gains in solar installations here in Boston, for example, our 15 megawatts of installed solar PV is barely one percent of our potential for 1,456 megawatts of rooftop capacity.

The good news is that cities can do far more to drive the growth of solar energy – with or without state policy support. This May, San Francisco adopted ordinance 71-16 making it the first major city in the country (although following the lead of California cities Lancaster and Sebastopol) to require photovoltaic or thermal solar panels on new construction of homes and businesses.

San Francisco’s solar energy requirement for new construction is a particularly smart and cost-effective way for cities to drive solar growth. As the legislation explains, “requiring solar [energy] at the time of new construction is more cost-effective than installing the equipment after construction because workers are already on-site, permitting and administrative costs are lower, and it is more cost effective to include such systems in existing construction financing.” And because many U.S. cities are seeing historic construction booms (including Boston) there’s never been a better time to ensure that new development brings clean, renewable energy along with it.

Although California is one of the states with the best policy support for solar energy, smart local policies can let cities in states with weak support take the lead for driving renewable energy adoption. We’ve seen this to some extent already. For example in Texas, which lacks critical solar polices like statewide net metering, much state solar growth has occurred in and around the city of Austin because of support from local government and from Austin’s municipally owned utility, including a goal for 700 MW of solar energy within the decade.

For America to transition to 100 percent clean energy, policymakers at every level of government will need to work to drive forward renewable energy adoption. But at the local level, policymakers have a unique ability to quickly craft and implement ambitious and creative policymaking, and can set examples for the rest of the country to follow.

Authors

Gideon Weissman

Former Policy Analyst, Frontier Group