EGN NEWS DESK
“If you’re doing dwelling enchancment contracts, by regulation it’s a must to guarantee your work for 10 years,” she mentioned. That shift wouldn’t solely undermine photo voltaic contractors’ potential to put in new initiatives, however doubtlessly threaten their potential to service or preserve already put in initiatives, since that follow-up work would void the prevailing guarantee, she mentioned.
Doherty disputed that characterization. “The majority of contractors doing this work are already C-10 license holders,” he mentioned, together with at the very least 2,300 companies working within the photo voltaic and battery area. “The argument the C-46 contractors have been making for years is, it is a nice profession. Well, it’s not a nice profession in the event you’re solely educated to put in photo voltaic panels.”
But the lawsuit in opposition to CSLB argues that C-46 license holders shouldn’t be thought-about much less expert or skilled than C-10 license holders relating to putting in batteries. According to the written criticism, the choice ignores “the truth that CSLB’s personal license examination requires photo voltaic contractors have intensive data of the California Electrical Code and different related guidelines and rules to soundly carry out battery work.”
The two sides additionally dispute how a lot the choice will hurt the state’s photo voltaic contractors. During the CSLB’s April board listening to, Love acknowledged that “most C-46s have a C-10 certification, and we’re solely speaking about, in response to the final examine, 400 contractors” who lack that certification that shall be topic to the brand new regulation.
But these roughly 450 holders of C-46 licenses might properly have bother acquiring the C-10 licenses, Del Chiaro mentioned, given the delays the CSLB is prone to face in processing the flood of purposes and checks required earlier than the brand new rule would go into impact later this yr.
More onerous, Del Chiaro mentioned, is that Californla labor code requires C-10 license holders to rent solely licensed electricians to do the kinds of work specified by the CSLB. This requirement, which is exclusive to California, does permit electrician union apprentices or licensed electrical employee trainees to work with a licensed electrician on a one-to-one ratio, she mentioned.
But this requirement may make it very troublesome for contractors to rent sufficient staff that qualify underneath the rule, given the extreme scarcity of licensed electricians within the state. What’s extra, way more skilled battery installers must bear three to 5 years of labor underneath an already-licensed electrician to earn their very own license — and any earlier expertise with putting in batteries that staff of C-46 licensed contractors might have doesn’t depend, she mentioned.
Daniel Kammen, a professor on the University of California, Berkeley who has suggested the U.S. authorities on power coverage, reiterated these factors in a letter to CSLB.
“Prohibiting C-46 contractors who at present set up and preserve battery power storage methods from persevering with to do the kinds of initiatives that they’ve already been doing in California will threaten jobs and sluggish the tempo that new storage initiatives will come on-line,” Kammen wrote. “Moreover, it gained’t be straightforward for photo voltaic contractors to get a C-10 electrical license and proceed their enterprise. And it gained’t be straightforward for photo voltaic staff to turn into licensed electricians, and even attainable for many.”
Doherty questioned whether or not acquiring the required license was as troublesome as opponents implied. “They can have a certified individual on their license to get a C-10. They can have an worker as a accountable worker for the license to bridge that point,” he mentioned.
But Del Chiaro argued that the scarcity of C-10 licensed electricians will make taking these steps tougher than electrical unions make it out to be. “IBEW is a lot busy. There’s a scarcity of electricians in California and elsewhere,” she mentioned. “They’re not clamoring to climb onto roofs and into closets and attics.”
Del Chiaro additionally identified that it’s going to take an excessive amount of time for C-46 license holders to finish the required coaching to obtain the C-10 license “If they’ve been doing photo voltaic and batteries for 7 to 10 years — the most effective couple of men each contractor has constructed their firm round — in the event that they’ve been working for a C-46 contractor, they’re not eligible to take a seat for a C-10 take a look at. They have to depart that firm, work for a C-10, and do this work for 3 to 5 years,” she mentioned.
The price to shoppers
If as a results of CLSB’s determination, C-46 license holders are compelled to halt work, the financial impacts might be important, in response to a examine CALSSA commissioned from evaluation agency Beacon Economics. That report, issued final yr, discovered that the rule may block $120 million in photo voltaic initiatives from transferring ahead within the first yr of its implementation, and result in $53 million in decreased main financial exercise within the state from stopping these initiatives.
Those prices gained’t be counterbalanced by any advantages, Beacon’s report discovered, as a result of no report of any “hearth and/or financial loss” from an improperly put in battery has been submitted to the report within the determination. “Thus, Beacon was not capable of finding any financial harm that the CSLB’s rule would stop.”
The CSLB determination has additionally confronted pushback from owners and shoppers, a few of whom testified in opposition to it at its April board assembly. “As a shopper, I need the most effective individual engaged on my rooftop photo voltaic or battery system. Who are these folks? They are the individuals who have finished the putting in within the first place. They’ve taken certification checks they usually have confirmed themselves,” Lee Miller, a Sacramento house owner with a photo voltaic and battery system, mentioned on the listening to.
“This proposal appears to be extra aligned with limiting entry to rooftop photo voltaic and battery methods,” she mentioned. “It prioritizes utility pursuits over shopper safety.”
Representatives of labor unions unaffiliated with electrical staff have echoed these criticisms.
“Our principal mission is the safety of the patron,” David De La Torre, secretary-treasurer of Laborers International Union of North America Local 261, mentioned on the April listening to. He and one different member of the CSLB board, which totals 15, voted in opposition to the choice.
La Torre famous that the Berkeley Labor Center report did not cite any cases of defective set up throughout the whole state. “I don’t assume the information is there. It doesn’t help the need to manage, to restrict the set up of [batteries] to a C-10 … I assume we’re overreaching a little.”
