Non-Residential Solar PV Permit Survey

In 2008, Sierra Club volunteers surveyed municipalities in Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to determine their estimated total permit fees for installing a roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) solar electric system on a non-residential structure. Such structures can include a commercial office building, industrial facility, church or non-profit building. This survey was done for three system sizes (8 kW, 49 kW and 131 kW). The volunteers asked each jurisdiction the same question to ensure comparable answers. Read the questions used in this survey

Many cities had little or no experience permitting large PV systems and were unsure how to respond to our survey. Others were confident in their responses, as their governments may have formally adopted PV permit fee schedules. [NOTE: these solar permit fee policies may be partly the result of the Sierra Club's solar permit fee campaign between 2005 and 2007, in California's Silicon Valley]. A few cities had no idea how to respond; these are marked as "unknown by municipality" in the ranking charts herein. Only one city has not yet responded to this survey as of the initial publication in April 2009. Survey results comparing the fees in all the surveyed cities are shown below. The Sierra Club will publish a detailed report about this survey in the summer of 2009.

On April 1, 2009, the Loma Prieta and San Francisco Bay Chapters of the Sierra Club contacted sixteen municipalities with reported fees greater than $5,000 for the 131 kW system size. The chapters did this to notify these cities that their solar permit fees where unreasonably high and request that the cities review their solar permit fee calculation methodologies, since they might be charging fees higher than cost recovery levels (as is required under California state law). Charging more for solar permit fees than the reasonable costs to administer the permit violates California Government Code Section 66014, which provides that fees associated with building inspections and building permits "shall not exceed the estimated reasonable cost of providing the service for which the fee is charged."

As of 4/21/2009, in response to this letter most of these entities have either:

Started the process of reviewing their solar permit fees or

Promptly made policy changes to compute permit fees in a supportive way or

Corrected the initial survey responses, claiming the results were inaccurate.

Municipalities with high fees typically compute them based on the claimed full valuation of the project (including the cost of the solar panels). This permit fee calculation methodology is inappropriate, as it tends to increase fees above cost recovery levels. The cost of the solar panels has no legitimate correlation to the cost of processing a permit and doing the inspection! The time and resources required to review and inspect PV installations relates to the amount of equipment that is being inspected and not to the cost of the PV panels.

The Sierra Club recommends that cities compute fees for PV permits based on a billable hourly rate for the plan review and inspection. The resources needed to approve a PV system depend on the completeness of the permit submittal package and the knowledge of the permit reviewer and inspector.

Solar Electric Permit Fees
Non-residential Systems

Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara Counties (ranked by fee, high to low)

8 kW system fees

49 kW System Fees

131 kW System Fees

** Fees Under review
## Fees updated following survey

Albany, Half Moon Bay, and San Bruno fees were unknown. Union City did not respond to the survey.

• June 10, 2009: Residential Solar Permit Fee Study Extended to Southern California!
  
• April 27, 2009: Sierra Club Launches Campaign to Encourage Cities in Silicon Valley to Lower Solar Permit Fees for Non-residential Systems
  
• Sept. 3, 2008: Sierra Club Releases Report on Local Government Climate Protection Policies in the Silicon Valley Region