Solar in Downey: itemized fees, two power sellers

Read the fee resolution before you read a quote

Start with the controlling document, Resolution No. 25-8303, adopted June 24, 2025, which sets the City's user fee schedule for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 effective July 1, 2025. For residential photovoltaic systems of 15 kW and under it lists a permit fee of $331.66 and a plan check fee of $151.99. Separately, the schedule lists a photovoltaic permit issuance fee of $58.04, and the Building and Safety fee section adds a technology fee of 8 percent of permit fees. Systems over 15 kW switch to per unit pricing at $11.85 per kW for the permit and $5.92 per kW for plan check. The resolution also builds in a 3 percent annual adjustment tied to the Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim CPI as of March 2025, so these figures drift upward.

Here is the tension. Government Code 66015 caps residential photovoltaic permit fees at $450 for systems up to 15 kW, plus $15 per kW above 15 kW. A city can charge more only by adopting a written finding, supported by substantial evidence, by resolution or ordinance. Downey's permit plus plan check alone comes to $483.65, and the issuance fee and 8 percent technology fee stack on top of that. We searched for a written finding this session and did not locate one. That does not prove one does not exist. It does mean a homeowner or contractor is entitled to ask the Building and Safety counter to point to it.

Practical translation. When a Downey quote shows a single round number for "permits," ask for the components. The pieces are published, so there is no excuse for a padded figure, and if the total on your invoice exceeds what the resolution supports, you have a specific document to wave. Boring paperwork, real money.

Your generation seller is probably Clean Power Alliance

Downey's council voted to join Clean Power Alliance on October 24, 2017 and service started in February 2019. Enrollment is automatic. The City's default product is Clean Power at 50 percent renewable content, and residents can switch to Lean Power at 36 percent, stay at 50, or pay up for 100 percent Green Power. SCE keeps delivering electricity and keeps sending the bill. Opting out entirely goes through cleanpoweralliance.org or (888) 585-3788. All of that is laid out on the City's CPA page, which also claims the arrangement moved Downey from SCE's 34 percent renewable generation to 50 percent at lower cost.

Why a solar shopper should care: the generation price is the part of the bill rooftop production offsets most directly. On CPA's residential rate sheet effective February 1, 2026, the Domestic all year generation rates are 9.063 cents per kWh for Lean, 9.816 for Clean, and 12.077 for 100 percent Green. On the time of use TOU-D-4 structure, CPA's summer on peak generation runs 22.313, 23.952 and 28.871 cents for the three products, against summer off peak at 4.801, 5.275 and 6.697 cents. Those are generation charges only, before SCE delivery, the generation municipal surcharge and the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment.

In practice, the mistake we see is a proposal that quietly prices every avoided kWh at a full bundled retail rate without saying whether the account is on Clean Power, Green Power, or opted out to SCE. The spread between those cases is real money over 25 years. Ask the question in writing: which generation product does this proposal assume, and what happens to the payback if I am on a different one.

What a kilowatt yields at Downey's latitude

Our model puts a downtown Downey roof at 1,711.8 kWh per year for each installed kW, the strongest of the three San Gabriel Valley and Gateway Cities pages we published this week. August is the top month at 167.6 kWh per kW and December is the floor at 112.1. The August peak lining up with cooling season is convenient. The December floor lining up with holiday evening load is not, and no amount of optimism changes the geometry.

PVGIS v5.2 model run by Solar Learning Lab on August 25, 2026, NSRDB radiation database. Fixed south facing mount, 30 degree tilt, 14 percent losses, downtown Downey coordinates. Your roof will differ. The run uses the PVGIS tool. Treat it as a standardized yardstick for comparing quotes, and expect a competent installer to reconcile it against your actual roof planes, shading and twelve months of usage before promising an offset percentage.

Downey has plenty of roofs to work with. The state's 2026 housing estimates count 21,074 single detached homes, 57.3 percent of the city's 36,774 units, on flat land at 118 feet elevation. But per the 2020 census the city split evenly at 50.0 percent owner occupied, so roughly half the housing stock needs a landlord's signature before panels go up.

The incentive map in 2026, without wishful thinking

The federal homeowner credit is gone for new work. Per the Congressional Research Service, the 30 percent Section 25D credit was terminated for expenditures after December 31, 2025, and the statute counts an expenditure as made when installation is completed. A purchase completed in 2026 gets nothing federal. The CRS note does not address third party ownership, so we make no claim about what a lease or PPA provider can or cannot capture, and you should be suspicious of anyone who asserts it casually.

What still exists. SGIP's Residential Solar and Storage Equity budget, $280 million with reservations open since June 2, 2025, pays $3,100 per kW for solar and $1,100 per kWh for storage to income qualified households. DAC-SASH, run by GRID Alternatives through 2030, serves CARE or FERA eligible homes in top 25 percent CalEnviroScreen tracts, which is an address level test, not a citywide one. The property tax new construction exclusion means a qualifying system does not raise assessed value, but it sunsets January 1, 2027, which puts a real date on procrastination. Downey itself offers no local rebate; City staff told the Council as much in 2015 and nothing we found since contradicts them.

Run the estimator, then argue with it

This tool is simpler than a Downey bill on purpose. It applies the statewide retail rate to our local production run and standard cost inputs. It does not know your CPA product, your TOU plan or your export hours. Use it to compare system sizes and financing pressure, then make any installer who promises more show the hourly assumptions.

We are a solar installer and we also partner with other solar companies.

Downey document trail

Claims on this page trace to the following records, all reviewed August 25, 2026.

• Downey Resolution No. 25-8303 fee schedule and the August 2015 Council record on solar streamlining
• Building permit information, electronic plan check policy, and Building and Safety counter page
• City of Downey Clean Power Alliance page, CPA residential rates effective February 1, 2026, and CPA rate index
• SCE communities served tariff sheet, SCE community choice aggregation list, SCE time of use plans, and EIA 2024 utility sales data
• CPUC Net Billing Tariff and Decision 22-12-056 implementation document
• Government Code 66015, Government Code 65850.52, Civil Code 714, and the CEC permitting tracker
• CPUC SGIP page, DAC-SASH program page, BOE property tax exclusion, and CRS IN12611
• DOF E-5 housing estimates, Downey city profile, and PVGIS