Buying a home already is costly for far too many families. And now the state is going to add the cost of a rooftop solar system to every new home purchase, like it or not.
Starting January 1st, 2020, virtually all new homes built in California will be equipped with solar panels.
California Energy Commission voted in favor of new solar standards mandating that solar arrays be included on all new single-family homes and multi-family structures up to three stories.
This will bring California closer to meeting its goal of “net-zero” energy buildings. Homes built under the commission’s new solar and other efficiency standards are expected to use half as much energy as homes built in 2016 without panels, equivalent of taking 115,000 gas-burning cars off the road.
The new mandate doesn’t make existing houses in California get solar, though, just the 80,000 or so new houses built every year.