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Jun 09 2016
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San Jose: #5 Best Solar City in the US

By Solar Incentives by State No Comments

 

This month, Solar.com is launching a series of profiles on the hottest solar cities in the US. We’ll take a look at why these cities have been successful at putting solar panels on rooftops and where to look for solar if you’re ever passing through.

Today we visit San Jose, California. The epicenter of Silicon Valley, this city of just under 1 million residents has earned the #5 spot among top solar cities in the 2016 Shining Cities report, produced by Environment California and The Frontier Group.

Facts about solar in San Jose

  • San Jose has 141 megawatts of total solar capacity installed. That’s enough energy for about 28,000 average-sized homes.
  • San Jose is the global headquarters of SunPower, a $2.4 billion solar panel manufacturer that’s been in the solar business since 1985.
  • The home of the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team, Avaya Stadium, opened in 2015 with an 882-panel solar carport, providing two benefits at once: clean electricity and shade for the VIP parking lot.
  • In 2008, the US Department of Energy selected San Jose as a participant in its Solar America Cities program, highlighting leadership in the promotion of solar energy for homeowners, businesses and the public sector.

What makes San Jose a Shining Solar City?

As with all of the leading solar cities in the U.S., smart policies help make San Jose fertile ground for solar growth. Though the Golden State may have first earned its nickname from the Gold Rush, the state is blessed with generous solar incentives and regulations that have made California the top solar state by installed capacity by a long shot.

Foremost among California’s solar-friendly policies is its net metering program, which pays solar generators for the clean energy they send back to the electric grid. First passed 20 years ago, net metering in California is still going strong, with the state’s Public Utilities Commission voting earlier this year to preserve the cornerstone solar policy.

Also notable in California’s solar-friendly policies is the property tax exclusion, which means you won’t get taxed on the value of your home solar panels. (And when you include the fact that solar panels add value to your home, you get a nice win-win with this incentive.…)

The city of San Jose itself is also going to great lengths to encourage its solar boom. In 2007, the city passed an ambitious set of Green Vision Goals that cover every aspect of sustainable cities, with Goal 3 aiming for San Jose to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy by 2022. As of the end of 2013, the city had already achieved 24 percent renewables.

The city’s Solar Roadmap details the progress San Jose has made already, including streamlining the solar permitting process, making the building code more solar-friendly, encouraging easy solar financing through PACE programs, and building the local solar market for residential as well as commercial and public-sector buildings.

In 2008, the San Jose City Council passed its Green Building Ordinance, which requires all private-sector building projects to meet some green building requirements in order to receive a building permit. Depending on the size of the building, residential projects must go through a green-building checklist or, for larger projects, earn LEED certification – which encourages incorporating renewable energy like solar in building construction.

Notable solar installations in San Jose

The sprawling city is increasingly dotted with home solar installations, but one array almost every visitor to San Jose spots is the giant 1.1 MW setup at the San Jose International Airport.

San Jose has been doing solar for so long, some of the installations that were groundbreaking at the time the switch was flipped now seem fairly ho-hum in size. But when San Jose’s Tech Museum of Innovation announced its 169-kilowatt array in 2007, it was groundbreaking enough to earn a special award from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Other San Jose institutions with solar on the roof include:

San Jose has only just begun to tap its solar potential, and prices for installing solar panels are lower than ever before. To receive free, no-obligation bids on a solar installation for your home, check out the Solar.com online marketplace.

Jun 02 2016
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Solar Borrowing 101: Loan Maturities

How Will Solar Panels Affect My Home’s Value?

By Increase Your Home Property Value No Comments

 

Any solar company should be able to show how much you can save on your utility bill with solar panels for your home, but the savings estimate only looks at solar energy costs compared to the cost of energy from the grid. Homeowners often wonder how that solar array on the roof will affect the home’s resale value.

We’ve got good news for you: Study after study has confirmed that going solar offers a boost to the value of your home.

In 2011, 2013, and again in 2015, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California conducted studies to gauge if solar homes sold for more than non-solar homes. The answer is a resounding yes.

The price premium for solar homes changes over time, and the premium amount depends on the size and age of your system. In 2015, the home premium equaled about $4.10 per Watt in California and averaged about $3.00 per Watt in seven other states—Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. In California, with its average home solar system size of 5.5-kilowatts, that would equal $22,550 in added value to a home.

This marks a slight decline in the value boost from previous LBNL studies. In 2013, researchers found a $5.50 per Watt boost, and in 2011, the price premium ranged from $3.90 to $6.40 per Watt for California homes.

This downward trend is likely due to the fact that solar is getting mainstream: More homes are being constructed with solar and more homeowners are installing solar on their roofs. But the LBNL researchers also found that the older the system, and the smaller the system, the less of a boost to home values they offer.

No matter how you slice the numbers, though, the home value from adding solar panels can partially or completely cover the cost of the system itself.

It’s important to note that these studies only looked at fully owned solar systems, where the homeowners purchased the panels, rather than third-party-owned systems from a solar lease provider, like SolarCity. While a number of stories highlight the potential challenges of selling a home with leased solar panels on the roof, the prolific LBNL team in late 2015 conducted a qualitative assessment of sales of homes with leased solar systems in San Diego County. Though not as scientifically rigorous as the broader studies, the report notes that most homeowners in this group, 83 percent, said the leased panels did not affect their homes’ sale price. One-quarter of respondents said their solar homes spent more time on the market than they might have without a leased system, but all the homes in the study eventually sold.

So the bottom-line answer is that solar panels will probably affect your home value in a good way. Quite possibly in a very good way.

If you own your system, you’re likely to see a nice bump in the value and/or sale price of your home. The LBNL researchers found that the premiums exist whether or not you’ve paid it off in full. And why not? Just look at it from the buyer’s perspective. All the money they will save from lower utility bills may help pay for a nicer home—and they benefit from all the work you put into learning about solar energy, selecting a contractor, and making sure the job was done right. Meanwhile, those of you who opt for a solar lease may also see a small increase in sale price. Even if not, you most likely won’t be penalized for having gone solar.

For more information about whether solar is right for your home, talk to a Solar.com expert.