Questions about Solar in a Condominium

[RichardL]

I live in a small condo development in San Diego. There are 6 buildings each with around 2400sq feet of useable flat roof area - so a little over 1300 sq M in total, which I think could produce a fair bit of power in total.

My question is, does anyone know how this can be structured legally? The HoA pays for some power for elevators etc. and each owner gets their own bill.

Any experience or suggestions on how this might be approached? Especially considering the impending change in Net Metering.

Thanks

 

[spsheridan]

Does each owner have their own electric meter and electrical panel? Does each owner get a bill directly from the power company or is the bill from the condo development?

 

[RichardL]

Each owner gets their own bill, direct from SDG&E. If it was sub metered from the HoA it would be much simpler

 

[ewoodrick]

If you have a shared roof, then it may not be worth pursuing.
If you have a private roof, then you may get somewhere, but you have to fight the "it looks terrible police"

Being in California, you probably have a higher possibility than anyone else.

Check with your power company. Ask for an energy audit. They'll often try to help you out.

 

[RichardL]

It is a shared roof and the panels would be completely invisible, hence the notion is quite popular - that is why the question was about if anyone had done a ‘group’ arrangement like this and how it would be legally set up and funds allocated etc. something along the lines of a Community Power Co-Op?

 

[spsheridan]

Each owner gets their own bill, direct from SDG&E. If it was sub metered from the HoA it would be much simpler

How does SDG&E know what to bill each owner? If the owners all receive the same billing amount, that implies one electric meter and the charges are just divided evenly across the owners. If the owners are receiving different billing amounts, that implies there's a separate meter allocated to each unit. If you have a separate meter and electrical panel, can you seek approval from the HOA to install solar on your roof for dedicated solar power to your unit?

 

[petit_bateau]

Does the HoA have a meter for the whole site ? For the common areas ?

 

[RubberToe]

How does SDG&E know what to bill each owner? If the owners all receive the same billing amount, that implies one electric meter and the charges are just divided evenly across the owners. If the owners are receiving different billing amounts, that implies there's a separate meter allocated to each unit. If you have a separate meter and electrical panel, can you seek approval from the HOA to install solar on your roof for dedicated solar power to your unit?

Answer to the last question is yes. California law allows you to put solar panels on a common HOA roof. We just rewrote our CC&Rs and the standard boilerplate provided by our lawyers referenced the law that allows this. Same applies to EVSE installation.

RT

 

[RubberToe]

See this by Davis Sterling:

https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/E/Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Stations

And then 4745(a):
(a) Any covenant, restriction, or condition contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of any interest in a common interest development, and any provision of a governing document, as defined in Section 4150, that either effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the installation or use of an electric vehicle charging station within an owner’s unit or in a designated parking space, including, but not limited to, a deeded parking space, a parking space in an owner’s exclusive use common area, or a parking space that is specifically designated for use by a particular owner, or is in conflict with this section is void and unenforceable.

RT

 

[RichardL]

To try to clarify

Each owner gets their own bill via their own meter from the utility. In addition the HoA pays a separate bill for usage in common areas, such as elevators, lights and so on.
I am on the HoA board and we are trying to identify how we as a community can go solar, not just one individual. The HoA controls the roof area.

The question is if the HoA put solar up there is it possible to feed in before each individual meter so everyone’s power can be offset? It seems that with the new Net Metering rules we would generate far more than what just the HoA is billed for - so how can we use the solar to offset all usage, since we would not get much money from the utility for overage in the future under the new rules. Something like forming a virtual power group that owns the solar, then all owners buy from that group - I imagine that physically connecting prior to all the individual meters would be complex and expensive, so hoping there is a simpler way.

I know the next step is to bring in one of the solar companies to get a detailed analysis, I am simply trying to see if someone already dealt with this and, if so, how? So I can be better informed when talking to the vendor