California Center for Sustainable Energy

CSI goes through nonresidential faster than expected

CCSE’s California Solar Initiative program announced in November that the rebate budget for nonresidential solar installations is almost fully committed in the SDG&E service territory. Several circumstances — including higher-than-average solar production in sunny San Diego — resulted in the incentive budget depleting faster than expected.

While funding may be fully committed for commercial solar projects in San Diego for now, CCSE advises customers to continue to apply for nonresidential solar incentives to secure placement on the program’s waitlist. This is recommended because the average program dropout rate historically is about 20 percent, and with approximately 46 megawatts of reservations currently uncompleted in San Diego, many of the waitlisted projects could receive incentive reservations if additional program funding becomes available.

The CPUC is monitoring the CSI budgets for all three program areas and this information will be included on California Solar Statistics by late December. The budgetary issue in San Diego does not currently affect applications in the Pacific Gas and Electric or Southern California Edison territories.

Is there a silver lining to the current budget concerns? According to Katrina Perez, CCSE’s nonresidential solar program manager, the answer is positive. “We hope that this issue will help create a groundswell of support for additional funding of CSI or a new renewable energy incentive program in California in the near future,” Perez said.

You can read a San Diego Union-Tribune article that details the causes and effects of the recent CSI budgetary issues.

Continue reading December's newsletter.