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Memorandum To MEMORANDUM TO: Board of Supervisors’ Transportation/Planning Committee FROM: Chris Bazar, Director, Community Development Agency Albert Lopez, Planning Director DATE: April 18, 2018 SUBJECT: Draft Solar Policies for Alameda County and the East County Area Plan BACKGROUND The Board Transportation and Planning Committee last heard discussion about broad-based solar policies in July 2013. At that time, the Committee opted for a moderate policy position related to the siting of utility-scale solar energy facilities (SEFs) in the rural East County. The Committee directed Staff to develop a set of policies that would cover most issues of concern, but also wanted the flexibility to evaluate each utility-scale solar proposal on a case-by-case basis. The drafted policies would have applied to ground-mounted solar installations that generate power for off-site use (i.e. Solar Farm). Since these facilities tend to be much more land intensive than roof- mounted or ground-mounted solar systems that generate power primarily for on-site use, they also tend to have the greatest impacts. The policies presented at the time also addressed a Solar Program for the Urban Unincorporated Area. The policies placed the highest priority on developing solar energy capacity within the built environment. Then as now, under current county development regulations, solar panels can be placed on any existing legal roof, with a valid building permit. According to the County Building Inspection Division (BID), the number of building permits issued annually for solar panels has increased year by year; from 53 permits in 2010 to 85 in 2011, an increase of 60%; and 121 permits in 2012, an increase of 42% over 2011. From 2014 – 2017, County BID issued 1,525 permits for new residential solar PV, an average of more than 380 per year. Staff believes that this ongoing increase in permit activity reflects the evolving private solar market; especially, consistent significant decreases in the price of panels, which are expected to continue into the future, as well as diverse financing options that make installing solar panels a more attractive investment. For many years, the County has undertaken initiatives to support the development of solar energy within the unincorporated area; here are a few highlights: The County and eleven of its Cities have formed a Joint Powers Authority to create a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program, designated as the East Bay Community Energy Authority (EBCEA), which is designed and intended to bring greater levels of renewable energy at competitive prices to the residents of Alameda County. The EBCEA anticipates a June 1, 2018 launch for commercial and municipal accounts, and a fall 2018 launch for all others, including residential. A major goal of the EBCEA is to encourage and invest in renewable energy, including solar, at the local level. Supporting this goal are two energy mix options available to customers: – “Bright Choice”, with an energy portfolio mix that is 5% higher in carbon-free energy than PG&E’s standard mix and is the default product, to be delivered at lower cost than PG&E; and - A carbon-free product, “Brilliant 100,” will be at price parity with PG&E’s Standard energy mix. According to General Services Agency staff, as of Spring 2017, the County has installed a total of 3.5 megawatts of solar panels at a total of 13 facilities, including county-owned facilities and two community housing projects. The Community Climate Action Plan (CAP), approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2011, contains measures to promote solar development, including the creation of Solar Empowerment Zones where incentives would be provided to encourage solar. That document is being updated at this time, and will certainly include additional strategies to encourage solar development. The County Public Works Agency is at this time developing an amendment to the Building Code to require solar rooftops on all newly constructed single-family and low-rise multifamily buildings in the Unincorporated Area. California State law and State Title 24 Building Codes already require new construction to be “solar-ready,” that is, to have building-by-building features in place to readily accept solar photovoltaics and energy storage equipment; the new County proposal, possibly anticipating advances in upcoming State law and codes, would go a step further and mandate that most new buildings be constructed with solar PV in place. County programs could be expanded in the future to include additional ideas such as energy storage and rooftop replacement incentives. Alameda County continues to support viable renewable and energy saving programs. The County are members of multiple Joint Powers Authorities – Community Development Authority (CSCDA), California Economic Development Authority (CEDA), Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG), California Municipal Financial Authority (CMFA) - each that offer unincorporated residents and businesses an opportunity to finance renewable energy and energy/water efficiency improvements on their homes or business properties, including solar energy. There are six currently-approved program vendors providing voluntary opportunities in the unincorporated areas: CaliforniaFirst, California PACE, Home Energy Renovation Opportunity (HERO), CSCDA Open, CSCDA Ygrene Works, and Open PACE. By the time of the meeting, County CDA hopes to have some statistics on the progress of these programs for your Committee. Utility Scaled Solar in Alameda County While the County has moved on several fronts to incentivize and promote solar with an array of programs in the built environment, there is also significant interest in locating large, utility scaled projects in the rural, eastern part of the County. While not entirely a new development, one significant change in commercial solar interest in Alameda County has been the shift in location preference. In the early 2010s, almost every new solar proposal had been focused on the Mountain House region of the County, due to copious sunlight year-round, flat topography and proximity to existing grid infrastructure. Along with these benefits, drawbacks related to temporary loss of Important Farmland and wildlife habitat have made solar development in the region a closely-watched process. At this time, there is still interest in that region, but the Planning Department has recently seen a marked increase in proposals for the North Livermore Valley area, which shares some of the amenities of the Mountain House region, and which also has less potential for productive farmland loss. However, North Livermore does have some General Plan Policy constraints and other issues of its own. The earlier draft policies from the 2011-2014 effort were based on input from seven community meetings held during that period. The meeting attendees included property owners, solar industry representatives, environmentalists, agriculturalists, and staff from various government agencies and neighboring jurisdictions. The new policies draw upon those same concepts, but also recognize that the solar field has grown again considerably since 2014, the industry is maturing technologically and politically, the State has shown its increasing support for solar development and at the same time has become more precise in its general policy for location preference. In May of 2016, University of California prepared a study designed to precisely pinpoint locations in the San Joaquin Valley where solar energy could be developed with little or no conflict with either agriculture or environmental values (University of California, UC Berkeley School of Law, et al, A Path Forward; Identifying Least-Conflict Solar PV Development in California’s San Joaquin Valley, May 2016). Using precise digital techniques and well-established agricultural, environmental and cultural values, the study was able to precisely draw polygons within the 12,000,000-acre region where conflicts between solar and existing agricultural / biological values would be minimal, and also reveal areas where conflict would be likely. The report identified major regions in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Kern Counties totaling about 471,000 acres where conflicts would be minimal; these areas were designated Potential Least-, Least- and Priority Least-Conflict Areas. Elsewhere, including San Joaquin County near the Alameda County boundary, both agricultural and environmental values were deemed too high to label these lands “Least Conflict Areas.” While the study does NOT specifically include the small region of Alameda County near Mountain House that lies within the San Joaquin Valley, the mapping algorithms used in the study can be extrapolated beyond the San Joaquin County boundary to suggest that the Mountain House area, too, lies outside the areas recommended by the analysis as “Least Conflict Areas.” Specifically, the analysis suggests that the environmental conservation value of the region qualifies as “High” and that the agricultural values make the lands in this area either “Important Agricultural Areas” or “Potential Important Agricultural Areas.” The study does not say that solar should not be developed in areas where conflict would occur due to existing values, but rather that statewide efforts to develop solar energy should be concentrated in regions where these values present no obstacles. This report is attached to your Staff memo. Ideally, a similar study would be prepared for locations within Alameda County (North Livermore, Mountain House, possibly other smaller
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