2020 June – July
Temporary power pole, ….
To-Do List
Designing our House
Analyzing Sustainable Building Material
Temporary Housing
Power / Solar PV
Getting clear on permits
Still not done
LA County – Debris removal certification
Building permit
Electricity
Water / Well
Phone | Internet
Temporary Power Pole … and what about power?
In June, we got a temporary power pole. Finally.
We were super excited about the “temp pole,” in the lingo of rebuilders. We thought now we can connect our solar PV and through the “Self-Generation Incentive Program” (SGIP), take advantage of their new rebate program to supply to help vulnerable people in wildfire areas who are on a well or low income get battery storage.
Well, it turned out it would not be as easy as we thought.
As background on our solar/battery plans, we worked in the last year with the building department (LA County Dept. of Regional Planning) to find a solution for installing about half of the 6.7 kW of solar panels some friends donated to us after the fire.
As part of our recently attained temporary housing permit, they told us they would let us install as many as we could fit on a 120 sq ft garden shed—which is about 3.5 kW.
We have no other good rooftop structures, and although we have 3 acres with large areas of hardscape, the Coastal Commission makes it very difficult to install any ground-mounted systems in our area, so that option would take years.
6.7 kW of Solar PV
We were also recently talking to Tesla about getting SGIP equity rebates on a couple Powerwalls (the only type of back up power system that seems accessible to the SGIP equity rebate program, according to several experienced installers – not ideal to be so limited, but still a welcome opportunity), which we were told we qualified for, due to our being in a wildfire area and being dependent on a well.
Our local SCE planner said he would be glad to move forward on interconnecting our solar and future batteries, but only if we have a permanent pole. SCE told us they would be glad to put in a permanent pole, and we agreed this would be ideal, since we had a permanent pole that burned down in the fire by no fault of our own.
However, LA County Department of Regional Planning will not approve any permanent poles for fire rebuilds without a final building permit, a process that is taking a very long time. Only a handful of building permits have been issued by LA County for Woolsey fire victims.
In our case, as those of you who have followed our story well know, it took us until now just to get our temporary housing permit to live in our surviving guest house and new tiny house, due to the long mud clean-up and other tough processes. Ironically, as you may recall, the massive mud cleanup was needed because in the weeks after the fire, SCE was installing power poles along our road, so the Sheriff would not let us enter to protect our land from mudslides, despite our begging at every office we could think of. Getting our final building permit is estimated to take roughly another 1 to 3 years. So the only pole option granted to those of us with only a temporary housing permit is to rent a temporary pole.
Our electrician has assured us that the temporary pole would have the same amperage as the permanent pole, and our electrical panels would also be virtually identical. This did not sway SCE, who insisted that there was no option to interconnect solar or batteries to temporary poles. Also, we would have to pay a commercial construction TOU rate for temporary power, which is unfortunately also more expensive than normal residential rates.
The grid is so close yet so far. When and how can we connect to the grid?
Our local SCE planner was kind and apologetic and accepted our request to speak to his supervisor to learn more about the reasoning behind this obstacle and to see if there might be any work around. The supervisor was also empathetic and responsive and clarified that the reason that SCE could not approve solar or battery interconnection for a temporary pole is that there was no CPUC approved solar rate for temporary poles. The only rate option she knew of was that pricey commercial construction TOU rate.
In the meantime, we also looked into just going off grid, but the amount of solar our building department would let us install was frighteningly limited for our needs, and the cost of enough batteries to have decent 24 hr power very high, especially given that we would also have to pay for a large generator to get through rainy periods, charge our EV, and manage multi-day power safety shutoff (or worse, disaster) events.
So we wrote a letter to the CPUC and explained: “It would be great if CPUC could create a solar rate for temporary poles for those living in fire rebuild temporary housing to facilitate using clean energy. We have many neighbors in the same boat, like the next home up in the canyon, whose panels melted in the fire, but can’t get interconnection for their replacements until they finally get their building permit. Meanwhile, they are burning gas generators to survive in their trailer. This is typical.” We added that we knew this could be hard and that they might well not be able to help us, but could hopefully work on this for future fire victims.
Leaders at the CPUC could not have been more gracious and quick to respond. Everyone agreed this was a strange gap and should not be so hard. We took comfort in knowing that perhaps our struggle could lead to solutions for others some day.
What we did not expect is to hear back a few days later that SCE had found a workaround. But sure enough, they did. It turns out that fire rebuilds fall under two different solar grid interconnection rules (Rule 21 and Rule 13, for the power policy wonks out there). And one of them (Rule 21) works for solar interconnection! The SCE supervisor seemed almost as excited as us to make this discovery and to be able to help us move forward on installing solar.
Then at the very same time came bad news from Regional Planning. The Coastal Commission would no longer allow solar installations on our shed because in the latest local plan, solar would not be allowed on temporary structures. It did not matter if it was connected to a power pole or not. We were out of luck. But not out of determination and hope.
Emboldened by our unexpected success with SCE, and convinced that there had to be a solution to something so obviously good, we wrote to the leaders at the Coastal Commission and our state representatives to tell them about our conundrum and ask if there was anything that might be done. We explained to them that we were certain that the local plan certainly had great effort and thought that went into it, but that certainly no one wanted one of the outcomes to be to force fire survivors to use fossil fuel generators instead of safely installed solar and batteries during their temporary housing phase. And certainly this could not be good for protecting the Coast.
A few days later, we got excellent news. The Regional Planning representative emailed us to tell us that we would be allowed to pursue a solar permit on our temporary shed as previously discussed.
As we are posting this, SCE is planning on having a special meeting just to discuss our project. We are their first customer who will be pursuing solar interconnection on a temporary pole! It’s not hard to see why, as it was not easy to get to this point. But hopefully our process will help ease the way for others, which would be good for our air quality, good for the climate, good for coastal protection, and good for power bills of fire survivors while they go through the long and complicated process of getting building permits.
Now if only we can convince Coastal Commission to ease permits for small (like less than 10 kw) ground mounted solar systems, especially on permitted hardscape. But today, we count our blessings that we have made as much progress as we have!