the film forum library tutorial contact DONATE

San Francisco Cutting Back Solar Program by Staff Clean Edge News, July 13, 2012

San Francisco's GoSolarSF has been funded at $5 million per year, but that figure is proposed to be slashed down to $2 million for each of the next two years by Mayor Ed Lee.

When funding was cut to $3 million in the most recent fiscal year, the program dried up just nine months into the cycle and forced the City to turn away customers for the first time since the program began. Some worry the current funding level could kill the program just months into the City's proposed two-year budget. The Board of Supervisors has yet to approve Lee's two-year city budget.

The GoSolarSF program was launched in 2008 and has led to 1,826 solar installations, or 5.75 megawatts of energy (the equivalent of 12 football fields of solar panels across San Francisco rooftops). This growth represents a quadrupling the number of solar panels in the City in just over four years. As of March 2012, nearly 40% of all GoSolarSF applications have come from low-income families in communities across the City. Many argue that cutting back the program could be a devastating to San Francisco's leadership position in the clean technology industry, including nine solar power industry executives who wrote to Mayor Lee last mont