The San Diego MLS Green Features Initiative is taking shape. The growing consumer interest in sustainability is attracting attention. In California, energy efficiency has been cost-effective since 1978. Homeowners who have invested in energy efficient upgrades need to see the value of their investments reflected in appraisals and selling prices. Buyers are shopping smarter when it comes to energy.

In California, there’s a huge difference between home built before 1978 and those built since. Homes built today are more than 400% more energy efficient than older homes. These improvements lower utilities costs and make homes safer, healthier, and more comfortable,

Behind the scenes, progressive San Diego Realtors and allied professionals continue to gain momentum in their effort to include green features in MLS listings. Interest in this effort stems from a strong sentiment in the industry that “green” provides value to clients trying to respond to rising energy prices and upgrade an aging, inefficient, often uncomfortable housing stock. The “green” designation is growing more popular among Realtors,

Federal, state, and local governments have taken notice of the cultural shift toward sustainability and have spread around incentives to improve buildings’ efficiency and diminish the country’s dependence on non-renewable energy sources.

Areas where green MLS statistics have been kept show the positive trends that green home sales are making in their area. For instance, in Atlanta during 2009, certified green homes sold 3.6% closer to list price and were on the market 31 days less than conventional new construction (108 vs. 139 days).

A 2012 UCLA study finds a 9% contributory value for green-labeled homes. The 2011 North Carolina Energy Efficiency Alliance’s ENERGY STAR Market Impact finds that ENERGY STAR® new homes sold for a $5,500 premium, 90 days sooner than other homes.

One way to ensure that the industry is prepared for the growing attention and demand for more efficient, comfortable homes is by making it simpler to find, promote, and evaluate green properties. As the San Diego MLS Green Features initiative gains steam around the country, building professionals in San Diego have established cross-functional teams to plan and execute green MLS here.

What can you do?

• Sign the letter supporting adding green features to San Diego MLS listings. http://energycenter.org/mls
• Contact your Realtor association to see where they stand with implementing the San Diego Green Features Initiative.
• Look for additional articles and blog posts from us as we continue to help the industry understand the ins and outs of energy efficiency, ROI for improvements, and the array of rebates and financing packages to support investments.

Net metering allows homeowners with solar systems to feed excess energy back into the grid and makes their utility company compensate them for it at retail rates. This shows up on monthly bills as a offset. In some months net metering can earn homeowners a credit.

It’s no wonder the solar industry is BIG on net metering – and utilities are not. The current arrangement was coming to completion – here’s what’s on the table to replace it.

This looks like a win for the solar industry, which has been fearful of losing this powerful incentive entirely. It must be noted that the rules around solar – from incentives to clean energy use mandated by recent Climate Action Plans to net metering all continue to morf as the dance toward sustainability quickens.

Here’s the press release:

CPUC ISSUES PROPOSED NET ENERGY METERING DECISION TO ENSURE CUSTOMERS CONTINUE TO BENEFIT FROM GOING SOLAR

SAN FRANCISCO, December 15, 2015 – The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today helped ensure that Californians will continue to receive the benefits of using clean energy by proposing a successor program to the current Net Energy Metering (NEM) program. NEM allows a customer-generator, such as those who have installed solar photovoltaics (PV), to receive a financial credit for power generated by their on-site system and fed back to the utility.

The Proposed Decision issued today by CPUC Administrative Law Judge Anne E. Simon establishes a NEM successor program that would continue the existing NEM structure while making some adjustments to align the costs of NEM successor customers more closely with those of non-NEM customers.

In creating a successor program to the existing NEM program, the CPUC was directed by Assembly Bill 327 (Perea, 2013) to ensure that customers pay their appropriate share of costs while encouraging a sustainable customer-sited renewable distributed generation program. The Proposed Decision attempts to strike a balance between these requirements. These new costs for NEM successor customers include:

● One-time interconnection fee (likely to be approximately $75-$150). This fee, which represents the costs for a utility to review and ensure that a NEM system interconnects safely to the grid, has historically been borne by all utility customers, including non-NEM customers. The Proposed Decision finds that these interconnection costs can be paid by NEM successor customers themselves without jeopardizing the economics of the NEM installation.
● Non-bypassable charges that all utility customers pay. Non-bypassable charges are used to fund low income and efficiency programs. They are the equivalent of approximately 2-3 cents per kilowatt-hour of energy consumed. Historically, NEM customers have only paid for non-bypassable charges if over the course of a year they consumed more electricity from the grid than their installation produced. The Proposed Decision finds that NEM successor customers should pay for non-bypassable charges on all energy they consume from the grid, regardless of the amount of energy they have exported to the grid.

In order to maximize the value of time-of-use rates in improving customer responsiveness to grid impacts, the Proposed Decision requires NEM successor customers to utilize time-of-use rates. Customers who sign up in 2018 or later must utilize time-of-use rates as soon as they sign up, while customers who sign up before 2018 must utilize time-of-use rates beginning when all residential customers go on default time-of-use rates in 2019. The Proposed Decision establishes a framework to develop two new programs to drive adoption of renewable distributed generation among residential customers in disadvantaged communities. One program would provide financial incentives for multi-family buildings to install solar PV, and the second would allow residential customers in disadvantaged communities, regardless of whether they own or rent, to participate in NEM even if they aren’t able to install a renewable energy system on their premises.

The successor NEM program would take effect for new NEM customers after the utilities’ existing NEM program participation caps are met, or July 1, 2017, whichever occurs first.

The Proposed Decision is scheduled for the CPUC’s January 28, 2016, Voting Meeting.

The Proposed Decision is available at here.

For more information about the CPUC, please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov.

Where are we with the San Diego Climate Action Plan? We’re working from an Adoption Draft 2015. The city’s Committee on the Environment will convene a special committee meeting on November 30^th to take action on a report from the Planning Department requesting the City Council approve the plan.

Which means we’re getting there.

The San Diego Climate Action Plan is both general and specific – providing a roadmap to achieve greenhouse gas reductions through 2035. It sets forth common-sense strategies to mitigate potential environmental impacts and make us less vulnerable to climate change.

The plan is driven by these likely impacts:

• Increased temperatures
• Reduction in air quality
• New public health issues
• Reductions in fresh water
• Increased rate of wildfires
• Rising sea levels
• Negative impacts on wildlife

In implementing strategies, the plan seeks to balance environment and growth. It responds to state targets, laws, and regulations regarding reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It advances San Diego’s City of Villages concept, featuring walkable centers linked by active transportation.

The plan identifies these basic goals:

• Create green jobs
• Improve public health – air and water
• Reduce dependence on imported water and energy
• Help homebuyers educate themselves on the energy and water usage of a building before purchasing, without adding significant delay or cost to the home-buying process
• Enhance quality of life – active transportation, trees, parks
• Save taxpayers money by reducing waste at municipal facilities

The San Diego Climate Action Plan puts forth what it calls Five Bold Strategies. It sets out measurements and standards around each elements, and identifies and provides resources to do the tracking and reporting

Here’s a quick rundown on each:

• Energy- and water-efficient buildings
  • Residential and non-residential
  • Mixture of mandates and incentives
  • Residential Energy Conservation and Disclosure Ordinance
  • Support water rate structures that encourage water conservation and reuse, including greywater
  • Implement an Outdoor Landscaping Ordinance that requires use of weather-based controllers.
  • Expand PACE financing programs
  • Expand incentive programs to promote energy and water efficiency
• Clean and renewable energy
  • Goal of 100% renewable energy on the city-wide grid by 2035
• Bicycling, walking, transit, land-use
  • Increase use of each through improving bike lanes, crosswalks, sidewalks, parking, developing areas around transit stops.
• Zero waste
  • Improving landfill operation and waste water treatment to capture methane gas
• Climate resiliency
  • Urban tree planting program and parks development

The San Diego Climate Action Plan is the result of much local effort with tons of ongoing citizen participation. It will certainly change and shape our future. It’s nicely done and very readable.

We don’t spend much time reading Senate bills. But sometimes, they tell a story, or are part of a story that’s relevant to our lives and our work. SB350 is one of those.

SB350 is called the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015. It was signed by our governor on October 7th of this year. Here’s what you need to know about it – at least so far.

The stated purpose of the bill is to create jobs, grow the state’s economy, and improve public health by setting new standards for California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and increasing energy efficiency in existing buildings.

The original bill contained three parts. Two parts were signed into law; the third part, an attempt to legislate up to a 50% reduction in gasoline use by 2030, was derailed by the oil industry in the final week of the legislative session.

Let’s talk about the other two parts.

One has to do with keeping the ball rolling in the shift to renewable energy resources such as solar and wind. As real estate professionals, there are two things to keep an eye on:

Net metering. Currently, when your home generates more energy than you can use, power is fed back into the grid and your power utility pays you for it – at the retail rate. Utilities would rather pay you at wholesale and are working hard to change the rules.

Private power companies. When solar companies lease panels to homeowners, they get the electricity. They are aggregating this power to become, in essence, private utility companies. They stand to profit.

These two movements, coupled with SB350, are changing the playing field for solar businesses – and changing the ROI on solar investments for homeowners.

The other part of SB350 mandates the improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings. Although most attention has been focused on commercial buildings so far, the shift to attention on residential buildings is well underway. Here’s what to watch for:

Zero energy. It’s clearly possible to build houses that generate as much energy as they use. Smart homes. The movement towards zero energy homes is no longer an alternative idea – it’s being pushed by the Department of Energy in Washington as well as forward-thinking state agencies.

Building science. The first goal of zero energy is to build a tight shell – one that doesn’t leak cool air in the summer and warm air in the winter. This changes the way buildings are effected by moisture. It also means handling the air in different ways to make sure it’s healthy as well as comfortable. Building science is changing the way homes are designed and built. High-end architects and builders are getting on board. Look for building science to push the building industry to higher levels of sophistication and competency.

Homeowner behavior. Having an energy-efficient home and appliances is only half the equation; the other half is how consumers run their homes. Software that monitors smart meters is becoming accessible. Homeowners can see, in real time, the effect their decisions make. A graph on their cellphone can show a spike when they turn on a hair dryer and they can see exactly what it will cost. This information will allow users to be smarter – like their homes! It will also allow contractors to monitor the homes they’ve worked on to see – and demonstrate – the effectiveness of their work.

So, what are we doing about all this?

• We’re working to get green home characteristics included in MLS listings. This is one energy-related area California is not leading the nation.
• We include a basic energy evaluation in every home inspection.
• We do complete energy assessments and help home buyers, homeowners, contractors, and lenders access and leverage a growing array of financial tools to help pay for energy upgrades.
• We work with Realtors to help them understand all this energy stuff and how to make sense out of it for their business and for their clients.

We’re also upgrading our website to include a brief form homeowners can fill out that will tell us quickly what directions they might want to consider towards maximizing their comfort and reducing their energy bills. We follow up with a brief phone conversation to help them understand their options and point them in the right directions. Would you please go online and try it – we’d love to hear from you!

Upcoming “Significant” Energy Rate Increases Drive Energy Efficiency and Alternative Options

Upbeat Video on Energy Efficiency Mortgages. Combined with Energy Efficiency Rebates will create a great opportunity for Home Owner, Realtors and the struggling construction industry.  Upbeat Energy Efficient Mortgage Video

San Diego Real Estate Listing Service Sandicor Announces New Updates to San Diego MLS | Sandicor, Inc. – Your Source for MLS Property Data in San Diego County, California.

New Green Features added to San Diego’s County MLS