Register Your Team

Our public-private effort seeks engagement across California, with Teams and Challenge Champions collaborating jointly on policy, business, and technical innovations to reduce the State’s variability with respect to local building codes, approvals processes, and pass/fail criteria for solar energy projects. Click here for Goals and Challenge Guidelines.

Take Action

For Regional/Local Governments

  • Create lasting, local jobs
  • Economic Development
  • A Greener Community
  • Revenue grows as volume grows

For Utilities

  • Customer Service
  • Responsiveness
  • Inspire loyalty
  • Reduce administrative costs, less paperwork

For CA Solar Companies

  • Cut red tape by $0.50 / W
  • More lasting local jobs, faster
  • Validate best practices, costs
  • Increase market size

Eligibility

  • Open to SolarTech members and non-members alike
  • Local/Regional Governments, Utilities, and Industry
  • Team Based Collaborative Partnerships
  • A Team is made up of
    • Local/Regional Government
    • Utilities support AHJs as appropriate per service territory
    • Industry (Integrator / Installer, 3rd party service providers, Software)
    • Finance (if applicable)
  • Cities and utilities can participate on multiple teams
  • Industry may enter multiple entries
  • Teams are competing against each other
  • Two Challenge categories (residential, commercial up to 250kW)

Operational Principles

SolarTech and Challenge Participants collectively are seeking to create, test, and innovate various processes, policies, and solutions through a platform for a subsidy free marketplace

  • Team approach - companies, city, utility, money source, consumer
  • Share openly, propose best practices, implement and validate in search of Best in class - use any, all best practices at each step of the way
  • We will track the repeated cost, time, and risk reduction effect of continuously sharing of “Best in Class” solutions over the course of delivering real Residential and Commercial solar installations from signed customer contract to grid connection.
  • We are looking for transparency on true time, delays, and costs (within reason) to share in measuring the real impact of leading a transition to a set of tools for scaling the market
  • Local Governments should be assured of cost recovery while Industry should be assured of sustainable profitability on each project. This is about finding the optimal balance between safety, efficiency, speed, cost, and growth.
  • We’d like to complete the projects without CSI rebates given Tier 8 rebates of $0.25 / W < $1.00 / W representing the costs we’re targeting and CSI rebate application processes represent Current State, not “Future State”. Obviously the 30% ITC applies (and MACRS in the case of commercial installations)

 

Solar Challenge Online Registration Form

Basic Information

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Note: The 2011 Great California Solar Challenge is only open to companies working in California.






Who is Represented?



Please submit any question and/or inquiry you may have regarding the Challenge to permitting@solartech.org.