BILL ANALYSIS �
Bill No: AB
2135
SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION
Senator Roderick D. Wright, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
Staff Analysis
AB 2135 Author: Blumenfield
As Amended: June 11, 2012
Hearing Date: June 26, 2012
Consultant: Paul Donahue
SUBJECT
Local government: Solar energy installation guidebook and
implementation incentives
DESCRIPTION
1)Requires specified state entities to develop a guidebook
to assist cities and counties in implementing building
standards and permitting processes for solar distributed
generation technology, and post the guidebook on their
websites.
2)Authorizes the Air Resources Board and the California
Energy Commission to give priority in certain grant
programs to cities and counties that adopt the policies
in the guidebook.
EXISTING LAW
1)The California Building Standards Law provides for the
adoption of building standards by state agencies by
requiring all state agencies proposing to adopt any
building standard to submit the building standard to the
California Building Standards Commission for approval and
adoption.
2)Requires the Commission to adopt specific building
standards, as prescribed.
AB 2135 (Blumenfield) continued
Page 2
3)Requires the Commission to publish editions of the
building code once every 3 years.
4)Authorizes the Commission, upon a finding of emergency,
to adopt building standards on an emergency basis through
a specific procedure.
BACKGROUND
1)Purpose : According to the author's office, the process
of obtaining local government permits to install rooftop
solar panels varies widely across cities and counties and
is often inefficient and expensive. The author contends
that inefficient local processes waste time and money,
and local variation forces installers to spend time and
money customizing plans for each jurisdiction. The
author believes that standardizing this process makes
sense because most installations are relatively similar
and share many similarities of design. The author states
that this bill seeks to bring more certainty and
uniformity to property owners hoping to install solar
systems by creating a guidebook to help local governments
streamline their permit processes.
2)Author's amendments : The author proposes the following
amendments:
18941.11. (a) The Governor's Office of Planning
and Research, the commission, and the Department
of Housing and Community Development, in
cooperation with the State Fire Marshal, shall
develop a guidebook to assist local agencies in
implementing building standards and permitting
processes for solar distributed generation
technology on residential and commercial
non-residential properties. The commission, the
Department of Housing and Community Development,
and the State Fire Marshal shall post the
guidebook on their respective Internet Web sites.
(b) A city, county, city and county, or charter
city that adopts implements the policies from the
guidebook developed pursuant to subdivision (a)
may receive a preference or priority related to
grant funds from the California Energy Commission
or the State Air Resources Board for the purposes
of energy or climate project planning or
AB 2135 (Blumenfield) continued
Page 3
implementation.
3)Modifications to the guidelines : The bill does not
address how these solar installation permitting
guidelines would be updated. This is important given
that the relevant building codes and electrical codes are
routinely updated. For example, existing law requires
the Building Standards Commission to publish an updated
California Electrical Code every 3 years. The 2010
California Electrical Code includes the full text of the
2008 National Electrical Code, which includes all
California additions, changes and deletions.
Although the current California Electrical Code includes
the 2008 National Electrical Code, the 2011 National
Electrical Code by happenstance adds nearly 16 pages of
new provisions devoted to solar electrical installations.
These are likely to be significant, and will no doubt
require changes to the guidelines once they are
incorporated into the next revision of the State
Electrical Code.
In light of the above, the author or the Committee may
wish to provide for regular updating of the guidebook as
necessary.
4)Modification process : If one is to assume that the
guidebook will be updated periodically, the bill does not
specify a procedure for updating the guidelines. It
would seem that OPR should conduct a quasi-regulatory
process so that interested professionals and stakeholders
could have input into the guidebook revision process.
The author and the committee may wish to specify that the
OPR shall conduct public workshops to allow for public
and technical input into the guidebook revision process.
5)The incentives : The incentives are unclear and seemingly
unworkable in their present form. The bill says that if
a local government implements the guidebook policies,
then they may receive a "preference or priority" in
connection with grants awarded by the Energy Commission
or the Air Resources Board.
There is no mechanism in the bill for determining whether
and to what extent a local jurisdiction has implemented
AB 2135 (Blumenfield) continued
Page 4
the yet-to-be-released guidelines. The incentives
themselves are vague and unenforceable. Even though the
guidelines pertain to solar electric installations, the
local government could apparently obtain grant
preferences or priorities on all energy or climate change
project planning or implementation measures. This seems
to be a rather expansive incentive package. The
incentives are not quantified. Does a local entity get
first priority for grant issuance? Is that justified in
every grant situation?
It appears that most localities would welcome the
issuance of statewide guidelines on the manner in which
solar installations should be permitted, which local
agencies should review the applications, how overlapping
concerns about firefighter access to roofs should be
reconciled with the goals of increasing rooftop solar
installations, and the like. It therefore appears that
recent amendments to the bill adding a preference or
priority for grants may not even be necessary.
Thus, the author or the Committee may wish to delete the
provisions of the bill that would offer the unspecified
reward to localities that implement the guidelines for
solar installations.
SUPPORT:
Sierra Club California
Sunrun
Vote Solar Initiative
OPPOSE:
None on file
FISCAL COMMITTEE: Senate Appropriations Committee
**********
AB 2135 (Blumenfield) continued
Page 5