Thirty thousand square feet of PV panels grace the roof of the Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco.

San Francisco's much-touted solar incentive program, GoSolar San Francisco, was set to launch Monday, but San Francisco Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, chair of the city board's budget committee, asked last week for a study of the Mayor's Energy Conservation Account, which would have funded the $3 million program, and sought to freeze spending from the account until the study could be completed. Although McGoldrick's proposal was just that--a proposal, not a resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors--the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) opted to halt the program until the Board could review the budget and make a decision on spending.

SFPUC had approved a solar subsidy for local residents and businesses in January 2008. The subsidy, which was to be retroactive to Dec.16, 2007, would provide between $3,000 and $5,000 for a home installation and up to $10,000 for businesses, with extra incentives given to those in low-income neighborhoods, and to residential or business installations that used a San Francisco-based installer.

Although Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting on Friday called the delay "a minor setback," ensuring residents and businesses that the program would get underway at some point, local solar businesses see the hold-up as fairly major.  A program that may happen in the near future is precisely what the solar industry doesn't need, says Mike Hall, President of Borrego Solar, a Berkeley-based solar installation company.

"This was never billed as something that 'might' happen," Halls says. "The SFPUC said it was something that would happen." Hall had already signed a lease on a San Francisco office for Borrego, hoping to take advantage of the GoSolar's incentives for using San Francisco-based installers.

"We probably would not have opened a San Francisco office had there not been this program," Hall explains, " We would have just continued to service San Francisco clients from our Berkeley office as we have been doing for years."  He adds that the incentive program was part of the city's plan to encourage green businesses to move into the city, where rent is expensive. "If you don’t have some kind of government program in place, it’s cheaper to cross the bridge than to pay rent in San Francisco, which is about three or four times more what it is in the East Bay," Hall says.

A "wait and see" attitude is already a major barrier to solar adoption, as people wait for new technologies and rebates to come online, Hall points out, and an incentive program waiting in the wings only adds fuel to the fire. "Why would anyone sign a contract now when they think they can wait a month and get a $4,000 rebate?" he asks. "Even though the program will supply retroactive payments, that's a difficult point to get across to people."