In December of 2007, a Santa Clara (California) judge ruled that two residential homeowners, Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett, would have to cut down their majestic redwoods to provide solar access for adjacent homeowner Mark Vargas, whose 2001-installed solar array wasn’t getting enough sunlight to reduce his energy dependency on conventional sources.
Vargas’ weapon was the California Solar Shade Control Act, enacted in 1978, which provided that, “no person owning, or in control of a property shall allow a tree or shrub to be placed, or, if placed, to grow on such property, subsequent to the installation of a solar collector on the property of another so as to cast a shadow greater than 10 percent of the collector absorption area upon that solar collector surface on the property of another at any one time between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., local standard time.”
A judge with the wisdom of Solomon might have suggested merely topping the trees, since trees, by their very nature, are excellent carbon dioxide inhibitors, taking up about 48 pounds per year. This, of course, varies depending on the species of tree, its location, and its age.
A 10-kilowatt solar array, like Vargas’s, prevents about 10 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per year by eliminating fossil-fuel based energy production. In this equation, the trees should have won, at least in terms of emissions attributed to climate change. That they didn’t is an indication of faulty legislation, bits of which litter the renewable energy landscape from California to Maine.
Since the redwood debacle, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that would protect trees planted before a solar array is installed. It’s too late for the redwoods, of course, but this new California law serves to highlight an all-too-common problem – disreputable installers who fail to perform an initial property inspection to determine the proper location and maximum viability of solar for potential buyers.
You can avoid this scenario by visiting Cooler Planet’s approved solar installer page and choosing from a long (and growing) list of installers who back their work with years of experience in the solar industry.
