Welcome to Solar Freedom: Your home. Your roof. Your power. The podcast where we help you defend the freedom and independence of rooftop solar with our hosts from the Solar Rights Alliance: Dave Rosenfeld, Executive Director, and Cailey Underhill, Advocacy and Development Director.
IN THIS EPISODE:
We discuss takeaways from this legislative session and how to defend your solar rights with Jenn Engstrom, the State Director of the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG).
https://solarrights.org/signup/
The legislative session wrapped up a few weeks ago, and there’s good news and bad news: Thanks to you, your rooftop solar contracts are safe, and so is your climate credit: AB 942 did not pass. Unfortunately, a good bill also did not pass: SB 710. This bill sought to extend the existing property tax exemption for rooftop solar. We’ll have another shot at extending the exemption next year.
We spoke with Jenn Engstrom, the State Director of the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) about how to defend your solar consumer rights in California.
And we took a walk down memory lane in a conversation with Yvette, solar user and Solar Rights Alliance member, where we shared our first memories of the wonder of rooftop solar.
KEY MOMENTS:
What we learned this legislative session: 00:35
Jenn Engstrom, State Director of CALPIRG: 4:43
Solar Hero Gerard: 21:25
Actions you can take: 24:17
Solar Voices with Yvette: 25:53
"When people come together, we can get more done." -Jenn Engstrom
You can help build the power of the Alliance by signing up for alerts and sharing the signup link with a few people, or a thousand: https://solarrights.org/signup/
TRANSCRIPT:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode6Transcript
GET THE FULL STORY:
Solar Freedom, Episode 1:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode1
Solar Freedom, Episode 2:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode2
Solar Freedom, Episode 3:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode3
Solar Freedom Episode 4:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode4
Solar Freedom Episode 5:
https://bit.ly/SolarRightsAlliancePodcast-Episode5
MORE BACKGROUND:
The solar contract and California’s guarantee:
The CA State Supreme Court Decision on NEM3:
https://solarrights.org/blog/2025/08/07/nem3appeal/
The utilities and their allies spent more than $1 billion influencing politicians, nonprofits, academia, and more:
https://solarrights.org/blog/2024/11/13/utilitypayments/
Learn more about the utility lies about rooftop solar:
https://solarrights.org/cost-shift/
We’d love to hear your stories and questions!
Give us a call at 619-292-8740, and let us know in your voicemail that you’re calling for the podcast. We’ll select questions and stories to play on the air for each episode!