SAN FRANCISCO – California’s once-thriving residential solar industry is in ruins after state officials slashed rooftop solar incentives, causing thousands of job losses, said clean energy advocates and solar industry representatives during a recent virtual briefing.
The incentives played a crucial role in outfitting solar panels on approximately 2 million homes, establishing the state as the leader in the clean energy revolution. But the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, bowed to demands from Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to roll back those incentives.
That decision has now led to the loss of over 17,000 solar jobs in California, says a new analysis by the California Solar and Storage Association, or CALSSA, discussed during the briefing. Many more layoffs and bankruptcies are likely by the end of the year and beyond.
Representatives from CALSSA, the Environmental Working Group – which hosted the event – and other organizations also noted that the CPUC’s move has significantly undermined the feasibility of solar access for working- and middle-class families. It led to a steep drop in the number of installations, triggering widespread layoffs across the industry.
“As a result of this, our industry is shedding jobs by the tens of thousands,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of CALSSA. “We estimate we have lost or are about to lose in the next couple of weeks, right before Christmas, 17,000 solar jobs. Seventeen thousand jobs have been shed as a direct result of this really bad policy decision that was made on behalf of California’s investor-owned utilities.”
Carlos Beccar, marketing director for the solar installer company Energy Concepts Enterprises, based in Fresno, laid bare the devastating impacts of the state’s rollback of the solar program for the industry.
“The volume [of solar installations] has dropped by 80 to 90 percent of the volume of activity, the volume of interest,” said Beccar. “Because it just doesn’t make any sense for a homeowner who goes solar and does it overwhelmingly to save money.”
Speakers during the briefing strongly condemned the CPUC for acquiescing to the monopoly utilities’ demands to eliminate their only source of competition: families with rooftop solar.
They made clear their ire toward state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom for permitting such actions to happen in a state that, until a few months ago, had been the unmatched leader in advancing clean energy and climate policy. In particular, they blamed Newsom and the CPUC for the decision.
“The entire nonprofit community, school districts, were saying, don’t do this. There were farmers who said, don’t do this. There were entire cities that said, don’t do this,” said Dave Rosenfeld, executive director of the Solar Rights Alliance, a coalition of more than 600 organizations across California fighting to protect the rooftop solar program.
Rosenfeld said Newsom and the CPUC “completely disregarded what the public was telling them.”
“Gov. Newsom, where are you? This is the front line of efforts for clean, distributed energy. Core to our future. Where is our leadership?” asked EWG President and California resident Ken Cook, who moderated the discussion.
“We need the legislature to step up now. We need Gov. Newsom to step up now. This is not acceptable. We’re losing this human capital and punishing a lot of small businesses. Is that what we should be doing?” Cook added.
“Can you imagine what would happen if a couple of factories closed down and 17,000 jobs disappeared overnight?” said Cook, expressing outrage over the lack of attention the substantial loss of well-paid solar jobs have received from both the media and among the state's political leaders.
California’s landmark residential solar initiative has been held up as one of the most ambitious and effective government policies ever adopted to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis in the U.S., considering the state’s outsize footprint in the global economy.
Laura Deehan, state director of the nonprofit group Environment California, lamented the CPUC’s action and how it will slow down the state’s goals to curb climate pollution.
“We can build the average rooftop solar in less than three months if we have the people on the ground, the boots in the field doing that work to install it, and time matters. If we delay any clean energy installations, that has huge ramifications for how quickly California, the nation and the world get to one hundred percent clean energy power,” she said during the briefing.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Protect Our Communities Foundation and EWG sued the CPUC over its ruling in favor of the for-profit power companies’ plot to crush rooftop solar for California residents. State appellate court oral arguments are scheduled for December 13.
Note: The full briefing can be found here. The speakers are available for interviews.
###
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
