Summary:

Despite being the top city in the country in total volume of solar deployed, it is lagging in watts per resident capita, according to Environment America’s “Shining Cities 2019” study.

===================

Main Article:

While California cities (and Honolulu) lead Environment America’s list of solar cities, Los Angeles doesn’t make the top ten in terms of watts per capita.
Ever since the creation of the country’s first large-scale solar plants in the late 1980s, California has been leading the charge in solar power through its policies, such as the recently approved measure demanding the installation of solar panels in every new home starting in 202.

This is the likely the primary reason that California gets the highest portion of its power from in-state solar (14% in 2018) of any state.

And as the state’s policies have supported both large-scale and distributed solar, it should not be a surprise that California cities are among the leaders in terms of installed solar, both measured on raw volume and watts per resident, as documented by Environment America in its latest report on U.S. cities and solar.

It is the latter figure which shows some of the discrepancies. While Los Angeles is the top city for total volume of solar deployed at 420 MW, this is due in part to it being the second-largest city in the United States with four million residents, and it doesn’t make the top 10 for watts per capita.

In fact, with only 105 watts per resident, Los Angeles is well behind San Diego (#2 at 247 watts per capita), San Jose (#3 at 195 watts per capita) and Riverside (#8 at 138 watts per capita).
 
San Diego, San Jose and Riverside are notable as they are some of the largest cities in the service areas of California’s three investor-owned utilities: respectively, San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E), Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). Whereas Los Angeles has its own municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

This may appear counterintuitive for those who read Naomi Klein’s 2014 book, This Changes Everything, which argued that taking public control of utilities was a necessary first step towards decarbonization. If this is the case, when why isn’t LADWP – a public utility under the control of the voters of Los Angeles – a leader in solar?

In a February interview with pv magazine USA, California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro blamed the agency’s bureaucracy for a lack of progress. She noted that while the interconnection process has finally been streamlined for residential solar, that there are now significant difficulties getting behind-the-meter energy storage systems interconnected.

“I can’t tell you how many contractors refuse to do business in Los Angeles because of the bureaucracy,” Del Chiaro told pv magazine.

LADWP may have turned a corner, as the city rose one place in the per-capita rankings this year, but its position is still unimpressive for a city in California.