In some parts of San Francisco, the sun is an infrequent but welcome visitor; but even in some of the foggiest sectors of the city, you will still find property owners who install solar panels on their roofs to try to make better use of renewable energy and cut energy costs. The fog aside, San Francisco is apparently a good place to go solar, according to the Solar East Index.
Complete Solar issues the Solar Ease Index to rank California cities on the difficulties or ease with which people can adopt solar. For example, the best cities “turn around permits to install solar within a single day,” says Complete Solar. “The worst cities can take a month.” Also going into the ranking is the cost of permits.
So how did San Francisco do? It ranked in the top 10 cities in the state, coming in at number nine. Despite what it considers an “inflated” permitting fee of $170, Complete Solar still gave the city high marks, clearly impressed by its one-day turnaround for permits. Overall, Menlo Park was in the top spot, and the worst city was Pico Rivera.
