Helping Californians Go Solar
We have helped many thousands of homeowners, businesses, and multi-family residences harness the sun’s power with California Solar Initiative rebates. Also known as the Million Solar Roofs program, the California Solar Initiative is a ratepayer-funded statewide program designed to create 3,000 MW of new, distributed solar power. It pays an incentive or rebate to customers who install photovoltaic or solar thermal systems on their homes or businesses. As of Dec. 31, 2012, we had reserved incentives for approximately 39,000 customers, totaling 505 MW and $695 million in rebates.
We regularly offer workshops for homeowners, businesses, government and nonprofit customers to provide an overview of the program, and the rebates that are available. Other training programs (including web based training) are offered for photovoltaic installers, to help these contractors understand how these systems interconnect to the grid, and how to complete the rebate application forms on behalf of their customers, the property owners.
Solar Power on Warehouse Rooftops
In sunny, inland areas of Southern California, we are putting the rooftops of commercial and industrial buildings to productive use as solar generating stations. Our Solar Rooftop program may generate as much as 220 megawatts DC of solar power with rooftop and ground mounted photovoltaic panels, to be generated by us and independent power producers.
Delivering More Renewable Energy
Wind power production in California has doubled over the last decade, but before it can be used, this electricity must be transmitted from remote wind farms to the cities where most of us live and work. Additional transmission capacity is needed to move renewable energy to population centers. We are building the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, the nation’s largest transmission project devoted primarily to renewable energy. It will deliver up to 4,500 megawatts (MW) of power to California’s grid — enough to power 3 million homes.
At the same time, we’re expanding our infrastructure to bring in more solar power from eastern Riverside County. In our Devers-Colorado River project, we are developing 153 miles of high-voltage transmission to deliver up to 2,300 MW, once the West of Devers upgrade is completed.