California officials voted Thursday to allow Sacramento-area developers to build homes that don’t come equipped with solar panels — a move solar installers and environmentalists said would undermine the state’s first-in-the-nation home solar requirement. Critics countered that the whole point of the rooftop solar mandate, approved in 2018, was to make clean energy a standard feature of new homes. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) weighed in to support rooftop solar, but 31 other state lawmakers signed a letter urging approval of the Sacramento-area program. Environmentalists figured the option would be used sparingly, by multifamily developments without sufficient space for rooftop solar. Jobs installing rooftop solar panels are largely non-union.

Source: Los Angeles Times February 21, 2020 00:43 UTC