With its history of solar-friendly policies over the past two decades, California set the pace for solar adoption across the U.S., leading the nation in installed solar capacity for eight of the past 10 years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). In 2006, California began its Million Solar Roofs Initiative. The state achieved this goal in 2019. By the end of 2023, California generated 30.1% of its energy from the sun and had enough solar installed to power nearly 15 million homes.
California’s 49,000 MW of solar capacity is the highest of any state. The state’s early investments in solar helped commercialize the technology and drive down costs for everyone, accelerating the deployment of solar energy projects in the state, as well as in the rest of the country and even globally.
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However, in the past several years, California’s policies turned sharply against distributed solar. Since…
