ENVIRONMENT: Inland area No. 1 for home solar in state

Publication Date
Author
David Danelski and Steve Scauzillo
Source
The Press - Enterprise

Us Inland residents may still have California’s longest drive times to work, but now no one can accuse us of not doing our part to reduce carbon emissions.

A report by San Francisco-based Next 10 found that the Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario metropolitan area leads the Golden State in residential and commercial solar installations – with enough panels up to serve 38,500 homes – and is among the state leaders in receiving rebates for zero-emission vehicles, such as all-electric cars.

“It’s quite impressive,” said the venture capitalist F. Noel Perry, who founded Next 10, a think tank that describes itself as nonpartisan.

According to the report, California is easily the top state in the country in developing its clean-energy industry, leading all other states in solar energy production, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales and the number of clean-energy patents issued.

That wasn’t much of a surprise, though the state’s clear dominance was indeed striking.

And the Inland area’s dominance over the rest of the state in solar was just as striking.

With 16,454 kilowatts of commercial and 137,683 kW of residential solar, the Inland Empire beats out its neighbors, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (14,642 kW commercial, 125,908 kW commercial) and San Diego-Carlsbad (15,169 kW commercial, 132,007 kW residential) metropolitan areas.

At this point, the region has more than double the amount of installed residential solar capacity as Silicon Valley, the home of big-name players like San Mateo-based Solar City. The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area has just 64,747 kW of residential solar.

“This report reflects what we’ve long struggled with, the gap between perception and reality,” said Evan Gillespie, director of the Sierra Club’s My Generation Campaign. “That solar has long had this image of being this fancy, expensive product and the reality is, it’s a tool for middle class families to save money on their energy bills.”

The green wave cresting from what traditionally has been considered a conservative sub-region of Democratic-dominated Southern California speaks volumes to energy experts and trend watchers.

The report’s co-authors cited the falling cost of solar panels, coupled with zero-down financing offered by companies such as Solar City, as as reasons for the expansive growth in solar.

For his part, Perry cited a combination of ample sunshine, a single-family-home lifestyle and state and federal incentives added to the rollout of solar panels on Inland Empire rooftops.

No matter the causes, between 2009 and 2014 solar power generation in the state increased 1,378 percent.

“We often think a certain area is the green part of the state,” began Adam Fowler, research fellow with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. “But the IE makes a lot of sense for installing solar, with as much sun in that area, it is easier to capture.”

While per capita electricity use went up a small amount – 4.2 percent – since 2001, Inland residents slashed individual natural gas use by 36 percent, the report said.