Late final week, the California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) dealt a blow to the state’s aim of quickly rising native vitality storage capability, in keeping with the California Photo voltaic & Storage Affiliation (CALSSA).
The CSLB voted to approve a brand new rule that will prohibit licensed photo voltaic contractors from putting in new battery storage capability to present photo voltaic techniques or from performing upkeep on battery storage techniques together with these they put in themselves. These tasks would now require a licensed electrician. Licensed photo voltaic contractors would nonetheless be capable of set up smaller battery storage on the identical time when photo voltaic techniques are being put in however the lack of ability to supply warranties on these techniques renders the allowance impractical.
By severely limiting the workforce permitted to construct photo voltaic and vitality storage techniques and elevating the price of installations, the CLSB rule contradicts California’s acknowledged aim of quickly rising vitality storage capability.
Clear vitality advocates described the brand new rule as an answer looking for an issue. It was authorised by the CSLB regardless of the board’s personal analysis discovering zero earlier questions of safety or incidents throughout the all U.S. vitality storage batteries put in up to now.
“California retains saying one factor however doing one other with regards to the battle in opposition to local weather change,” mentioned Bernadette Del Chiaro, government director of CALSSA. “In simply the previous yr, California slashed rooftop photo voltaic incentives, prohibited self-generation for colleges and farms, and proposed costly fastened expenses that harm vitality conservation and low vitality customers. Now they’re undermining California’s rising battery storage progress via extreme workforce limitations. This has to cease if we’re to maneuver ahead as a state, preserve vitality costs low, and forestall future blackouts.”
The brand new rule was opposed by the photo voltaic and storage trade, clear vitality advocates and shoppers, together with unions representing laborers and carpenters. The electrician union, which has a signed settlement with PG&E to deal with “aggressive threats within the market” supported the change.
The rule will now be reviewed by the California Workplace of Administrative Regulation to make sure the laws are “clear, vital, and legally legitimate” and that the CSLB complied with the requirements set forth in California’s Administrative Process Act. The rule might then go into impact as early because the Fall of 2024.
Opponents of the rule have requested the Newsom Administration to step in and are contemplating authorized challenges based mostly on a mixture of procedural and substantive flaws within the CSLB’s rulemaking course of together with the truth that the company refused to review the environmental impacts of the brand new rule.
Information merchandise from the California Photo voltaic & Storage Affiliation
