San Francisco to require rooftop solar on new buildings

Share

San Francisco on Tuesday became California’s first major city to mandate solar installations on new buildings.

The move, which goes into effect in January, follows similar mandates passed by smaller municipalities Lancaster and Sebastopol in 2013, according to the San Francisco Examiner.

New commercial and residential buildings of up to 10 stories in height will have to install rooftop solar systems for heat or electricity under legislation that was unanimously approved by the city’s Board of Supervisors.

“In an era when we are reminded daily of our rapidly changing climate, it is so important that we continue our strong push to alternative, non-fossil fuel energies,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the legislation.

San Francisco has set a goal to use 100% renewable energy by 2025 in addition to other ambitious environmental targets.

The San Francisco Examiner quoted Barry Hooper, the Department of Environment Green Building Coordinator, who said last week that 100% renewable energy depended “on both development of renewable energy resources and continued improvement in energy efficiency.” He added that the ordinance represented another “straightforward and pragmatic step” toward that goal.

The legislation requires solar PV systems, solar water heating systems or a combination of the two.

California state law already requires most new buildings to have 15% of the rooftop “solar ready” in order to facilitate the installation of PV systems, the newspaper said.

The legislation adds to San Francisco’s environmental efforts, which also includes a new renewable energy program, known as CleanPowerSF, set to launch later this year.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.