As of April 19th 2016, San Francisco has become the first major American city to actively require the installation of solar panels on the roofs of all new buildings of less than 10 stories (larger buildings must wait, although I am not quite clear on why). The initiative is expected to avoid about 26,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Smaller Californian cities like Lancaster and Sebastopol already have such ordnances, and the state of California has long had a requirement that new buildings with 10 floors or less designate at least 15% of their rooftop area as being READY for solar panel installation. But San Francisco - always a progressive city - is the first major metropolitan area in the USA to mandate the installation of photovoltaic solar panels and, as such, sets the pace for other cities to follow. New York City is considering mandating solar panels, but only on some its municipal buildings. Nothing else comes close to San Francisco's commitment.
As things stand, San Francisco's Better Roofs Ordinance only requires that a minimum of 15% of the roof space be devoted to solar panels. There is a plan for future legislation to allow for living roofs to be installed in place of solar panels (living roofs provide insulation, reduce storm-water from entering the sewer, enhance biodiversity and habitat, sequester carbon, and capture pollution), and possibly for the percentage to be increased.
The city’s ultimate goal is to power itself with 100% renewable energy. Through the CleanPowerSF program, it already pools residents’ and businesses’ electricity demand in order to purchase bulk renewable energy from solar, wind, bioenergy, geothermal, and hydroelectric sources at competitive rates, and it automatically adds city power users to the program (although they can then opt out if they choose). As a result, the average San Francisco homeowner actually pays less than the electricity utility Pacific Gas and Electric’s standard rates for their greener power, and even those who request a 100% renewable mix only pay about $6 more per month extra. California also has various other solar incentive programs, such as the Million Solar Roofs Program and the California Solar Initiative.
Let's hope that more utilities - including here in Canada - see the benefits of San Francisco's visionary approach and join the bandwagon.
Another article on Vox Energy & Environment suggests that increasing housing density in cities like San Francisco could have an even greater environmental impact than undeniably worthy initiatives like the Better Roofs Ordinance.
San Francisco, like many other cities, currently has stringent zoning restrictions that artificially limit the number of housing units that can be built in the city, often by curbing building heights, which have the effect of constraining the total number of people who can live in the city (as well as raising housing costs). Studies have show that people who live in central San Francisco emit far less carbon dioxide than people living in nearby suburban areas, partly because their apartments tend to be smaller and so require less energy for heat and electricity, and partly because residents in the dense centre of San Francisco drive much less. A 2015 report from UCLA suggests that the average person in the city of San Francisco emits just 6.7 metric tons of CO2 per year, as compared to the 14.6 metric tons of CO2 per year emitted by the average person living in the surrounding Bay Area.
The Vox report suggests that the savings in CO2 yielded by a change in the zoning and density laws of a city like San Francisco could dwarf the effects of the solar panel initiative, and there is already a movement to bring this about.
I've often said that San Francisco is one of the very few jurisdictions in the USA where I could actually see myself living. This has only confirmed my opinions.
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