California ‘Cooked The Books’ To Justify Solar Panel Mandate

California regulators relied on precarious assumptions and incomplete data to rationalize their decision to require every home in the state be fitted with solar panels. The California Energy Commission made history when it voted in May to mandate every home carry solar panel installations. The rule — the first of its kind in the country — will apply to all newly built homes and low-rise apartment buildings beginning in January 2020, with some exceptions for shaded houses and people already involved in other renewable energy programs. The new mandate was the latest in California’s bid to be a leader in renewable energy development. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, a major proponent of climate change legislation, has continually pushed for a higher renewable energy mix in the state while attempting to phase out coal generation. Besides touting the environmental benefits that would come with such a mandate, the California Energy Commission argued that it would ultimately save residents money. However, one policy expert has dumped cold water on those claims. Steven Sexton, an assistant professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, outlined where the Commission relied on biased analysis and made flimsy assumptions on what the future costs of solar technology would be — mistakes that don’t reveal the true costs of owning solar panel, according to him. “Though the solar mandate is unlikely to deliver huge savings to consumers, it certainly will raise the price of new and old homes,” Sexton wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. The Commission argued that homeowners would save money with solar panels. Instead of using an independent investigation, however, they relied on economic analysis from Energy and Environmental Economics Inc., a consultancy group that proposed the very mandate they were studying...MORE