San Franciscans do not all the time agree on a lot. But it surely’s protected to say you will not get a lot pushback for those who counsel we have to energy our metropolis with 100% inexperienced vitality.
What’s going to it take to realize that imaginative and prescient? Extra photo voltaic panels on our roofs, in fact. However so are the batteries. There are lots of of them.
San Francisco wants electrical energy when the fog clears and after sundown. Assembly that demand with out fossil fuels can be unimaginable if we do not begin storing our photo voltaic vitality for off-hours use.
And but for the previous three years in San Francisco, it has been unlawful to put in a 20-kilowatt-hour battery storage system in a one- or two-family house. For context, that is nonetheless not sufficient to energy a 2013 Nissan Leaf, one of many least electrical vehicles in the marketplace.
That is as a result of in 2019 — with none public debate and with out anybody outdoors the photo voltaic trade noticing — town’s Fireplace Fee quietly up to date its fireplace code to ban the programs. of the battery on this measurement attributable to unproven security issues. This ban may have change into everlasting this week if not for Jeanine Cotter, CEO of San Francisco photo voltaic and battery set up firm Luminalt Photo voltaic, who gave the one public remark earlier than a vote on the this matter, asking the commissioners to ask for extra. public opinion earlier than making such an vital resolution.
“Within the final three years, photo voltaic installers have needed to cease designing based mostly on the wants of our shoppers,” Cotter mentioned. “As an alternative, the design and measurement system is pushed by the have to be beneath the brink of town.”
San Francisco’s tips are extra stringent than these beneficial by the California Fireplace Marshal. They usually’re bringing town’s residential battery market to its knees: “Exterior of SF, we hardly ever deploy a system that is lower than 20-kilowatt hours,” Cotter says.
Luckily, San Francisco’s code change is not a whole deal breaker when it comes to blocking new solar energy. That is as a result of California’s “internet vitality metering” program generously rewards photo voltaic house owners for sending extra energy to the grid in the course of the day, permitting them to make use of utility-generated energy basically totally free. at night time. Batteries are a pleasant contact, however they aren’t important to make a system viable.
These days, nevertheless, are over.
On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Fee adopted new guidelines governing how residential photo voltaic interacts with the state’s energy grid. Funds for sending extra energy to the system can be diminished by nearly 75%. Bernadette Del Chiaro, govt director of the California Photo voltaic & Storage Affiliation, estimates that this may reduce the photo voltaic panel market by 40%-50% beginning late subsequent yr.
All is just not misplaced, nevertheless. As an alternative of sending extra solar energy to the grid, would-be photo voltaic house owners in California may even pencil of their funding by putting in batteries and utilizing the saved juice to generate it. all night time lengthy. If this occurs broadly, it would require intense strain from the state to satisfy the height vitality demand from 5 pm to 9 pm – when the photo voltaic panels cease working however the utilization of vitality will improve when the employees arrive at house.
Making this plan a actuality, nevertheless, “will increase the strain for orderly approval of batteries,” Del Chiaro mentioned.
Probably the greatest methods for San Francisco to assist California meet its local weather targets, is to do one thing that usually appears unimaginable – eradicating purple tape.
Nevertheless, we’re heading in the wrong way.
Along with its fireplace code, San Francisco not too long ago launched a state-mandated pilot allow streamlining program for big photo voltaic panel programs — but it surely won’t cowl residential battery installations for one- and two-unit items. home
To its credit score, the Fireplace Fee has lastly acknowledged a few of the unintended penalties of its battery laws. At a public assembly Wednesday, Fireplace Marshal Ken Cofflin beneficial that the fee delay any ultimate choices on battery security codes till it seeks extra group enter. Reached for remark, San Francisco Fireplace Division Capt. Jonathan Baxter informed me that “the division is working with the vitality storage system trade to make clear California’s security necessities for vitality storage programs for single-family houses within the metropolis and San Francisco county.”
Nick Josefowitz, chief coverage officer of the nonprofit assume tank SPUR, was one of many first to listen to Cotter’s alarm concerning the fireplace code’s future impression on inexperienced vitality. Whereas he is relieved that the fee now appears keen to think about a extra holistic view of the battery set up, he sees all the occasion as an emblem of our metropolis’s damaged authorities system — one wherein the left hand has no concept what the correct hand is doing and might do nothing. it would not appear to be thought-about in any respect.
“San Francisco has all these authorities silos,” he mentioned. “As a result of the Fireplace Fee solely focuses on fireplace security, we find yourself in these absurd conditions the place it proposes an efficient ban on San Franciscans placing photo voltaic on their roof for a small theoretical discount. of fireplace danger. This is similar sort of silent pondering that creates these intricate bureaucratic mazes that make it tough to construct a brand new residence, open a brand new restaurant or for an current restaurant to position road chairs with out violating half a dozen conflicting codes.
Fixing this broader dysfunction won’t be simple. Fireplace specialists ought to clearly have one thing to say about fireplace security. Simply as, say, homelessness specialists ought to have affect on homelessness insurance policies. However permitting subject material specialists to make insurance policies in a vacuum has produced the incorrect outcomes.
With no top-down imaginative and prescient – and no top-down authority to implement that imaginative and prescient – we’re left with a establishment that’s clearly not working: piles upon piles of competing purple tape that solely serves to additional gasoline our ineffective paperwork.
Matthew Fleischer is the editorial web page of The San Francisco Chronicle. E mail: matt.fleischer@sfchronicle.com
