A new front in California’s solar wars: Who’s allowed to install batteries?

California’s ongoing battle over the role that rooftop solar and batteries will play in its clean energy future has a new front — the workforce that’s allowed to install those systems. 

This spring, the California Contractors State Licensing Board (CSLB), an obscure state board responsible for licensing construction contractors, issued a revision to its rules that could have significant consequences for customers who want to install batteries to back up their rooftop solar systems. 

The decision effectively bars some of the state’s solar installers — holders of C-46 contractor licenses, in official parlance — from being allowed to install or warranty battery systems. The new rule has been approved by the state Office of Administrative Law and is set to go into effect later this year.

Last month, California solar industry and environmental justice groups filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. They argue that the CSLB failed to ​“disclose and analyze the full scope of the rule’s economic impacts — especially on small solar businesses,” or ​“identify reasonable alternatives to this extreme action,” which they warn could put hundreds of contractors out of business. 

Though solar contractors with C-46 licenses have been installing batteries in conjunction with rooftop solar since 1982, CSLB’s decision would limit that task to a different class of professionals — those that hold a C-10 electrical contractor license. Many of the state’s thousands of solar and battery installers do hold this second kind of license. But about 450 C-46 contractors could be prevented from doing this work, according to testimony advocates filed with the CSLB. 

That, in turn, could slow down the pace of battery installations in a state that needs to be moving faster to meet its clean energy goals. A shortage of licensed electricians is already causing backlogs for consumers trying to install electric vehicle chargers, upgrade home electrical panels, and conduct other work in California and across the country. 

The CSLB justified this proposal on the grounds that it would improve the safety of battery systems being installed in homes and businesses. But an independent analysis that the CSLB commissioned from the University of California at Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education to study the safety of batteries installed by C-46 solar contractors found no instances of fires, hazards, or other harms to consumers among more than 100,000 projects completed in the state to date. 

CSLB Chair Diana Love defended the decision during the April board meeting at which she voted with the majority of board members to approve the change. She conceded that the 2022 study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center ​“found that there were no incidents that happened. But we cannot predict the future,” she said. ​“We have climate change, we have fires, we have weather conditions that could potentially happen in the future, and we need to protect consumers.”

But opponents of the decision argue it has nothing to do with safety. Instead, they highlight that the state’s three big investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, have been pushing for this ruling since 2018 and have been fighting policies that support customer-owned solar and battery systems for years. 

The California State Association of Electrical Workers has also been calling for the revision. That coalition of electrical unions includes the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, the labor union representing workers of PG&E, the state’s largest utility, which has lobbied against rooftop and community solar policies. 

“Since 2018, the three investor-owned utilities with IBEW 1245 have been working to strip away the ability for solar contractors to install batteries,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, a trade group representing solar contractors that’s a party to the lawsuit challenging CSLB’s decision. ​“They would love to strip away the ability of solar contractors to install solar as well — but they feel they can’t quite win that. So the next best thing is to strip away the ability to do batteries — and that essentially cuts the solar contractor off from solar.” 

Electrical workers unions feel differently. ​“This doesn’t impact those in the industry from doing the work, it just requires them to have the proper license,” said John Doherty, business manager at IBEW Local 6 in San Francisco. ​“The average citizen should be the beneficiary of strict regulations by the state for who’s doing work, and what kind of work, and the risk involved.” 

But the solar industry and environmental groups suing the CSLB argue that the new rules will unfairly punish hundreds of small businesses that have been safely installing solar-battery systems for years without incident. 

Roger Lin, a senior attorney at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which joined the broader lawsuit against the CSLB last week, warned that the decision risks ​“undermining California’s climate goals and putting clean energy further out of reach for working-class families.” 

A new challenge for California’s struggling solar-battery market

The CSLB ruling comes as California’s solar installers are already reeling from regulatory decisions that have undermined the country’s largest rooftop solar and battery market. 

Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission slashed compensation for rooftop solar systems of customers served by PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric. Since then, new home rooftop solar projects have dropped sharply and many solar installers are being forced to lay off workers or close their doors, according to CALSSA.

Reducing the compensation that homeowners receive for feeding power back to the grid has increased the value of power that customers can store and consume during high-price late afternoon and evening hours. As a result, the CPUC’s new rooftop solar regime makes batteries paired with solar much more important than they were before. That’s driven a far higher rate of battery ​“attachment” to new solar systems since the change went into effect. 

To be specific, the CSLB’s decision bars C-46 solar contractors from installing batteries alongside existing solar systems. It would still allow them to install batteries as part of a new solar system, but with a major catch, Del Chiaro said: It would bar those contractors from being allowed to offer warranties for the battery work they do — and ​“that right there renders the C-46 license basically impotent.”

“If you’re doing home improvement contracts, by law you have to warranty your work for 10 years,” she said. That shift would not only undermine solar contractors’ ability to install new projects, but potentially threaten their ability to service or maintain already installed projects, since that follow-up work would void the existing warranty, she said. 

Doherty disputed that characterization. ​“The majority of contractors doing this work are already C-10 license holders,” he said, including at least 2,300 businesses working in the solar and battery field. ​“The argument the C-46 contractors have been making for years is, this is a great career. Well, it’s not a great career if you’re only trained to install solar panels.”

But the lawsuit against CSLB argues that C-46 license holders shouldn’t be considered less skilled or experienced than C-10 license holders when it comes to installing batteries. According to the written complaint, the decision ignores ​“the fact that CSLB’s own license exam requires solar contractors have extensive knowledge of the California Electrical Code and other relevant rules and regulations to safely perform battery work.” 

The two sides also dispute how much the decision will harm the state’s solar contractors. During the CSLB’s April board hearing, Love stated that ​“most C-46s have a C-10 certification, and we’re only talking about, according to the last study, 400 contractors” who lack that certification that will be subject to the new regulation. 

But those roughly 450 holders of C-46 licenses may well have trouble obtaining the C-10 licenses, Del Chiaro said, given the delays the CSLB is likely to face in processing the flood of applications and tests required before the new rule would go into effect later this year.

More onerous, Del Chiaro said, is that Californla labor code requires C-10 license holders to hire only certified electricians to do the types of work specified by the CSLB. This requirement, which is unique to California, does allow electrician union apprentices or certified electrical worker trainees to work with a certified electrician on a one-to-one ratio, she said. 

But this requirement could make it very difficult for contractors to hire enough workers that qualify under the rule, given the severe shortage of certified electricians in the state. What’s more, far more experienced battery installers would have to undergo three to five years of work under an already-licensed electrician to earn their own license — and any previous experience with installing batteries that employees of C-46 licensed contractors may have doesn’t count, she said. 

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who has advised the U.S. government on energy policy, reiterated these points in a letter to CSLB.

“Prohibiting C-46 contractors who currently install and maintain battery energy storage systems from continuing to do the types of projects that they have already been doing in California will threaten jobs and slow the pace that new storage projects will come online,” Kammen wrote. ​“Moreover, it won’t be easy for solar contractors to get a C-10 electrical license and continue their business. And it won’t be easy for solar workers to become certified electricians, or even possible for many.”

Doherty questioned whether obtaining the required license was as difficult as opponents implied. ​“They can have a qualified person on their license to get a C-10. They can have an employee as a responsible employee for the license to bridge that time,” he said. 

But Del Chiaro argued that the shortage of C-10 licensed electricians will make taking those steps harder than electrical unions make it out to be. ​“IBEW is plenty busy. There’s a shortage of electricians in California and elsewhere,” she said. ​“They’re not clamoring to climb onto roofs and into closets and attics.” 

Del Chiaro also pointed out that it will take too much time for C-46 license holders to complete the required training to receive the C-10 license. ​“If they’ve been doing solar and batteries for 7 to 10 years — the best couple of guys every contractor has built their company around — if they’ve been working for a C-46 contractor, they’re not eligible to sit for a C-10 test. They have to leave that company, work for a C-10, and do that work for 3 to 5 years,” she said. 

The cost to consumers 

If as a result of CLSB’s decision, C-46 license holders are forced to halt work, the economic impacts could be significant, according to a study CALSSA commissioned from analysis firm Beacon Economics. That report, issued last year, found that the rule could block $120 million in solar projects from moving forward in the first year of its implementation, and lead to $53 million in reduced primary economic activity in the state from stopping those projects. 

Those costs won’t be counterbalanced by any benefits, Beacon’s report found, because no record of any ​“fire and/​or economic loss” from an improperly installed battery has been submitted to the record in the decision. ​“Thus, Beacon was not able to find any economic damage that the CSLB’s rule would prevent.” 

The CSLB decision has also faced pushback from homeowners and consumers, some of whom testified against it at its April board meeting. ​“As a consumer, I want the best person working on my rooftop solar or battery system. Who are those people? They are the people who have done the installing in the first place. They’ve taken certification tests and they have proven themselves,” Lee Miller, a Sacramento homeowner with a solar and battery system, said at the hearing. 

“This proposal seems to be more aligned with limiting access to rooftop solar and battery systems,” she said. ​“It prioritizes utility interests over consumer protection.” 

Representatives of labor unions unaffiliated with electrical workers have echoed those criticisms.

“Our main mission is the protection of the consumer,” David De La Torre, secretary-treasurer of Laborers International Union of North America Local 261, said at the April hearing. He and one other member of the CSLB board, which totals 15, voted against the decision.

La Torre noted that the Berkeley Labor Center report failed to cite any instances of faulty installation across the entire state. ​“I don’t think the data is there. It doesn’t support the necessity to regulate, to confine the installation of [batteries] to a C-10 … I think we’re overreaching a little.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the California Office of Administrative Law had not yet approved the rule change that the California State Contractor Licensing Board voted in favor of in April. We regret the error.