“With the new gas-tax forcing prices up toward $4 a gallon, “cap-and-trade” taxes pushing electricity rates 50-percent higher than the national average, and the cost of renting or buying a home continuing to spiral out of control, the once Golden State now is home to a quarter of the nation’s homeless population – 134,000 people…

“California’s recently approved solar roof mandate for all new homes came as a surprise to many people — even though stakeholders have been working on the rule change for roughly two years. The latest round of standards, which take effect in 2020, do enable some pretty groundbreaking developments in the advancement of clean energy. Besides…

“Utilities are welcoming a historic rooftop solar building code in California, but urging caution with its implementation in order to protect non-solar customers. At the same time, utilities and solar developers are calling for a dialogue among stakeholders to effectively integrate additional rooftop solar into the grid.” Click here to read more from Utility Dive.

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“Should solar buying be simply mandated by a government bureaucracy without even a vote by our elected representatives in the Legislature? One additional very real concern: California is mired in a housing crisis. Buying a home already is unaffordable for far too many families. And now the state is going to add the cost of…

“For the U.S. solar industry, the new standards are expected to boost residential solar sales 14 percent over a four-year timeframe from 2020 through 2023, according to a new analysis from GTM Research. That’s an upside of nearly 650 megawatts (DC) compared to GTM’s base-case forecast for the residential solar segment.” Click here to read…

“While California faces some logistical challenges to implement the rules, clean-energy advocates are also looking ahead to how the carbon footprint of housing may be cut in other states. In many states, building industry trade groups would be leading the charge against these types of rules. California is different, It is less likely that other…

“The residential solar mandate for new homes approved by the state Energy Commission will make reaching California’s climate goals possibly more difficult and definitely more expensive. Such requirements are the most extreme tool for energy and environmental regulators, going beyond tax incentives, education programs and renewable standards for utilities. These mandates eliminate consumer choice and…

“The National Renewable Energy Laboratory figures that on a kilowatt-hour basis, electricity from home solar panels costs 2 1/2 times more than electricity from large solar facilities operated by utilities. The California approach brings to mind Mao Zedong’s call in the 1950s for Chinese peasants to build steel furnaces in their backyards. Many vital tasks…