As solar panels proliferate, so do legal questions

Is creating renewable energy more important than saving a tree or an open field? That question and others concerning the environmental-trumping power of solar energy has only recently begun to surface in legal disputes. Though the courts have not yet made a definitive decision on the subject, two decades-old California laws currently tip the odds. The Solar Rights Act and Solar Shade Act both enacted more than 30 years ago were meant to promote the installation of renewable energy systems by removing red tape and obstructions to sun. The Rights Act prohibits cities, counties and other entities from barring or mitigating solar panel installation, and the Shade Act restricts the growing or planting of trees that interfere with access to sunlight. The legislation passed in 1978 has been essentially dormant until recently as more and more incentives to install solar panels come online. Only now are the courts beginning to test the limits of the law, primarily concerning large solar plants. The acts, for example, do not account for impact on natural habitat by photovoltaic panel farms or the CO2-reducing capabilities of trees and other plants...read more