California Solar Initiative (CSI)
The California
Solar Initiative (CSI) General Market Program closed on December 31, 2016.
While California continues its commitment to supporting clean, renewable energy
such as solar, market transformation marked by significant drops in equipment
prices indicate that direct incentives are no longer necessary. Solar customers
are, however, eligible for the State’s Net Energy Metering Program (NEM), which provides financial
credit for customer-generated power fed back to the electric grid. NEM is an
important element of the policy framework supporting direct customer investment
in grid-tied distributed renewable energy generation, including customer-sited
solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
Please
see below for information about ongoing CSI programs that continue to provide
incentives to low-income customers installing solar PV systems and to all
utility customers installing solar water heating systems.
For more information please see CSI General Market Program Archive.
CSI Subprograms
- The Single-family
Solar Affordable Solar Housing (SASH) Program, providing
solar incentives to single-family lowincome housing; the SASH program is
administered through the SASH Program Manager, GRID Alternatives, and has
a budget of $54 million.
- The Multifamily Affordable Solar
Housing (MASH) Program, providing solar incentives to multifamily
low-income housing; the MASH program is administered through the same
Program Administrators as the general market program: Pacific Gas and
Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and the Center for
Sustainable Energy CSE (for San Diego Gas & Electric), and it has a
budget of $54 million.
- The CSI-Thermal Program, providing incentives for solar water heating and other solar thermal technologies to residential and commercial customers of PG&E, SCE, Southern California
Gas Company (SoCalGas), and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) .
- The CSI-Thermal Low-Income Program providing higher incentives for solar thermal technologies to multifamily and single-family residential customer in PG&E, SoCalGas, and SDG&E service territories.
The CSI Program is a subset of the
wider solar effort in California that commenced in 2006. In addition to the
CPUC’s CSI Program, Senate Bill 1(2006) envisioned that the State of California would
also have other programs to support onsite solar projects, including the California Energy Commission’s New Solar Homes Partnership (NSHP),
and a variety of solar programs offered through publicly owned utilities (POU).
The statewide effort that includes the CSI – as well as the NSHP and the POU
programs – and it is known collectively as Go Solar
California.
The statewide goal of the Go Solar California campaign is 3,000 MW and has a
statewide budget of $3.3 billion.
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