AB 1070: Solar energy systems: contracts: disclosures.

Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of various professions and vocations by boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law, the Contractors State License Law, provides for the licensure and regulation of contractors by the Contractors State License Board. Existing law requires licensed contractors to be classified and authorizes them to be classified as, among other things, a solar contractor. Under existing law, a solar contractor installs, modifies, maintains, and repairs thermal and photovoltaic solar energy systems. Existing law prohibits a solar contractor from performing building or construction trades, crafts, or skills, except when required to install a thermal or photovoltaic solar energy system.

Existing law authorizes the legislative body of a public agency, as defined, to determine that it would be convenient, advantageous, and in the public interest to designate an area within which authorized public agency officials and property owners may enter into voluntary contractual assessments to finance certain improvements, and to utilize Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing for the installation of distributed generation renewable energy sources and energy or water efficiency improvements, as specified. Existing law requires a financing estimate and disclosure form to be completed and delivered to a property owner before the property owner consummates a voluntary contractual assessment pursuant to one of these programs.

This bill would require the board, in collaboration with the Public Utilities Commission, on or before July 1, 2018, to develop and make available on its Internet Web site a disclosure document that provides a consumer with accurate, clear, and concise information regarding the installation of a solar energy system, as specified. The bill would require this disclosure document to be provided by the solar energy systems company to the consumer prior to completion of a sale, financing, or lease of a solar energy system, as defined, and that it, and the contract, be written in the same language as was principally used in the sales presentation and marketing material. The bill would also require, for solar energy systems utilizing PACE financing, that the financing estimate and disclosure form satisfy these requirements with respect to the financing contract, as specified. The bill would also require the board to post the PACE Financing Estimate and Disclosure form on its Internet Web site.

The bill would require the Contractors State License Board to receive and review complaints and consumer questions, and complaints received from state agencies, regarding solar energy systems companies and solar contractors. The bill would, beginning on July 1, 2019, require the board annually to compile a report documenting complaints it received relating to solar contractors that it shall make available publicly on the boards and the Public Utilities Commissions Internet Web sites.

The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities Commission and authorizes the commission to exercise ratemaking and rulemaking authority over all public utilities, as defined, subject to control by the Legislature.

This bill would require the Public Utilities Commission, on or before July 1, 2019, to develop standardized inputs and assumptions to be used in the calculation and presentation of electric utility bill savings to a consumer that can be expected by using a solar energy system by vendors, installers, or financing entities and to post them on its Internet Web site. The bill also would require electrical corporations to post the standardized inputs and assumptions.