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Another heat wave is coming. And gas prices continue to soar since the U.S. and Israel began attacks on Iran.
San Diegans are looking to both save money and survive in the ninth most expensive city in the country.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing the Bay Area, has a plan for that: balcony solar.
Millions of Germans are already powering part of their homes by adding solar panels to their balconies. The panels plug straight into a regular outlet, generating enough power to charge a laptop, power a small fridge or even a window A/C unit. It’s an ideal solution for renters who don’t own the roof over their heads where solar panels might typically go.
“Even one panel in a relatively sunny location can save your average California household about $250 bucks a year,” said Dave Rosenfeld with the Solar Rights Alliance, a group that’s advocating for the bill.
How does it work? The plug-in solar system turns sunshine into electricity sent directly into the home. That energy gets consumed by appliances and lights; electrons flow to the nearest “hungry mouth” that needs electricity, Rosenfeld wrote. The more the lights and appliances are powered by solar panels, the less electricity that home buys from the utility company.
California is often a leader in renewable energy and climate change-focused policies. But the deep-red state of Utah was first in the country to greenlight balcony solar, last March. Virginia just did, too.
Affordability is a bipartisan issue. Climate change – which replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy would greatly help stave off – is not. I asked Rosenfeld why climate change wasn’t a part of his group’s messaging.
“What we care about is giving consumers ways to capture energy from the sun,” he said.
State laws appear to be the route of choice to legalize balcony solar units and skirt pushback from utility companies which have been trying to delay balcony solar proliferation. Utah’s law exempts the technology from costly permitting requirements, like applying to interconnect with the electric grid.
That’s the same kind of regulatory hurdle a power plant or large solar plant would need to go clear, Wiener wrote in a press release about Senate Bill 868. Weiner thinks households shouldn’t have to do that in order to access a form of clean, cheap energy.
Utility companies have also raised concerns that if residents are beginning to plug their own power generators into the larger grid willy-nilly, they become harder to track and could endanger electrical workers. They say during an outage, a panel could still be generating and sending electricity through a home to the grid, where it could endanger a lineworker.
“That was a concern from 20 years ago,” Rosenfeld said. “[It’s been] standard on all rooftops that solar panels shutdown automatically when the grid goes down.”
Still, San Diego Gas and Electric officials are arguing that line.
Spokesperson Anthony Wagner said the bill as written creates “risks for lineworkers and first responders, complicates safe system operations and weakens safeguards that help ensure accurate metering, appropriate rates and reliable service.”
The California Public Utilities Commission is already working on the issue of plug-in solar, Wagner wrote. SDG&E officials would prefer the fate of balcony solar be decided that way, rather than through legislation.
San Diego Community Power, one of the region’s government-run power buyers, is on board with the proposal. The agency penned a letter of support for SB 868. Portable solar will “accelerate deep decarbonization, promote local development and strengthen community resilience,” wrote Patrick Welch, Community Power’s associate director of legislative affairs, in a letter to the State Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.
This all sounds very exciting. But Californians would have to shell out quite a bit of cash to buy one of these systems if they were legalized today.
According to Wiener, a 200-watt system, enough to power my laptop, costs about $400. An 800-watt system could be $2,000 – and that’s without an accompanying battery which could store energy while the sun is shining. But adding a battery – another substantial cost — would allow San Diegans to use the power they’ve generated later in the day between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., when energy use is most expensive.
Wiener’s bill limits the size of balcony solar to 1,200 watts – which should be enough to power a window A/C unit.
Apparently, the Germans are able to recoup their initial costs within five years, but balcony solar systems there cost about half the price.
Rosenfeld, with Solar Rights Alliance, says the price should hopefully drop as demand for balcony solar grows if the bill passes.
The energy committee will take up the bill at a hearing on Tuesday.
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A biweekly deluge of environmental drama.
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I cover the deluge of environmental drama in San Diego County including, but not limited to, energy and water affordability, the Colorado River and the cross-border sewage crisis on the Tijuana River.
San Diego fact about me: I placed third in the San Diego Library Shop’s 2019 Matchbook Story Contest.
Email: mackenzie.elmer@voiceofsandiego.org
Phone: (515) 229-8589
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Instagram: @journomack
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