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Million Solar Roofs
The Building Industry Institute (BII) is pleased to provide the following summary report from our 2001-2002 Million Solar Roofs (MSR) project. During this time period, the BII and our MSR management team negotiated groundbreaking benefits for solar builders-benefits never before offered to solar builders in California. We were able to persuade six local California governments to offer new benefits to builders who offer photovoltaics (PV) on new residential homes.
These six local governments include some of the busiest, fastest-growing communities in the State of California-the Cities of Corona, Lake Elsinore, Palmdale, Palm Desert, and Paso Robles and the County of Riverside. We also promoted photovoltaic policy, and worked on photovoltaic technical issues with leading production builders likely to build in these six jurisdictions in the future. These builders include Pardee Homes, Griffin Communities, Centex and Estrella Homes.
Through individual meetings with City and County officials in each of the six jurisdictions, our MSR team negotiated special benefits for solar builders. These benefits include faster plan check, reduced and/or waived fees, guaranteed (special) inspections and formal recognition. In the past, these benefits were only offered to homebuilders who build energy-efficiently and substantially above (15-30 percent) California's aggressive Title 24 Energy Code, and who benefit from third party inspections of installed energy efficiency improvements. MSR team members were able to arrange these benefits for solar builders, based on the economic and environmental community-wide benefits that accrue from solar building.
MSR Final Report
We invite your comments and suggestions. For more information, please contact Rob Hammon at 209.474.8446, or Rob@comfortwise.com. Thank you for visiting our site and please stay tuned for more information about our MSR project!
California Green Builder Program
The BII, working with it’s builder members, local jurisdictions,
state and federal organizations, environmental groups and local building organizations have discussed and outlined various approaches to the challenge of
prudent use of our natural resources.
The building industry has responded to this challenge by promoting environmentally responsible construction methods and products referred to as “Green Building.” However, Green Building has not been clearly defined. Because of the growing interest in Green Building both in California and nationally, the building industry has an interest in creating a definition of Green Building that the home buying public can understand and value.
Green Building guidelines set goals for significant improvements in energy efficiency, reduction in air emissions, on-site waste recycling and
reduction in water use. Working to that goal, the BII advisory group has defined the following as the California Green Builder Program minimum standards:
- Energy:
Participate in the Community Energy Efficiency Program or if building in an area not particpating in CEEP, meet the CEEP requirements.
- Air Quality:
reduce air emissions by building to Energy Star Homes efficiency level
- Waste Recycling:
50% diversion from land fill job site waste. Where recycling and diversion are not available, builder agrees to adopt the Building Industry Institute Waste Recycling Guidelines and work with local jurisdictions to overcome local market barriers
- Water Conservation:
25% decrease in water use compared to typical 1980’s home.
Protocols for the above minimum standards can be found in Reports, Protocols and Scope of Work section of our site.
The California Building Industry supports voluntary programs, and the
California Green Builder Program
has the opportunity to define a significant step builders can make towards resource efficiency.
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