The Brief

Solar developers say they’re facing crippling losses and potential bankruptcy amid a stall in a state-funded solar power program.

California’s “self-generation incentive program,” or SGIP, was reworked in 2024 to help low-income households install solar and battery-storage systems for free.

But SGIP has been plagued by delays, bureaucracy, poor communication and stalled payments, according to five developers LAist spoke with. Small developers say they’ve been hit especially hard by a lottery system that they argue favors larger developers.

And customers who stood to benefit the most from free installation of solar and battery storage — low-income households in the hottest and most fire-prone areas of the state — are in limbo, waiting months for the bill savings and energy reliability they were promised ahead of what is expected to be a record-hot summer.

The issue highlights the challenges to expanding access to clean energy as fossil fuel pollution continues to accelerate climate change and is another hit to an industry that has faced significant setbacks in recent years from changes to state-level rooftop solar programs and the Trump administration’s cuts to clean energy incentives.

How we got here 

The state has offered incentives to large electric customers to install generation and backup systems since the energy crisis of the early 2000s. The latest version of the SGIP program aims to prioritize qualifying low-income residents.

In 2024, the state allocated $280 million in state funds to install solar and batteries for free on qualifying homes and apartments. The program is administered through the state’s investor-owned utilities and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It officially launched last summer.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Developers identify projects they can take on, then apply for funding via a first-come-first-served reservation system. If requested funds exceed the total funding, then a lottery is triggered. If their project is approved, the developer does the work and covers the upfront costs of the installation with the understanding they’ll get paid back through SGIP within a year.

What’s happening in LADWP territory?

Solar panels dot the parking area at the DWP building in downtown Los Angeles.

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Lawrence K. Ho

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Getty Images

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As soon as the SGIP program launched last June, large developers quickly flooded the application system.

Sunrun, one of the nation’s largest solar developers, submitted applications requesting as much as 97% of the total funds available in Los Angeles Department of Water and Power territory, according to public data reviewed by LAist. (Sunrun declined to be interviewed for this story. LADWP didn’t agree to be interviewed about the breakdown of applications.)

LADWP said it is in the process of reviewing the 451 applications it received. So far, DWP officials have approved one: $28,000 for a single-family home project, the utility told LAist.

Smaller developers told LAist they’re concerned that there is no cap on how much any single developer can receive through the program. General market versions of SGIP not targeted for low-income properties have developer caps of 20% of the incentive funds, according to the program’s handbook.

“The purpose of the program, I believe, is not to just enrich the biggest players or to allow them to have free project financing,” said Aaron Eriksson, owner of Escondido-based Solar Symphony Construction, which applied for projects in LADWP territory. “We all got kind of left out in the cold on that one.”

Robert Cudd, a research analyst with UCLA who has studied SGIP, said the program does incentivize developers lining up as many projects as possible ahead of time to “claim the largest possible share of that rebate pool.”

That’s often the case for similar programs that aim to serve low-income customers.

The state “is agnostic about who is doing this work,” Cudd said. “They just want to accelerate the energy transition.”

Only a few large companies — including Sunrun and GRID Alternatives, as well as growing startup Haven Energy — have developed specialized expertise in these kinds of complex programs that have higher upfront costs.

Small companies on the brink 

Delayed reimbursements have developers worried about projects in the works and about new paperwork requirements.

In February, the California Public Utilities Commission — five governor-appointed regulators who oversee the program — abruptly paused SGIP. In their ruling, they said that projects submitted varied widely in costs, with many exceeding incentives “significantly.”

The ruling flagged discrepancies such as the same wall battery reportedly costing as low as $8,600 and as high as $21,000. So the CPUC decided to require developers to submit additional receipts and documentation of their costs.

But developers LAist spoke with said only a fraction of applications were at the state’s predicted costs. The developers argue costs have gone up due to inflation, tariffs and cuts to clean energy tax credits. Projects serving low-income households also often require upgrades because of the buildings’ age.

Joshua Buswell-Charkow, deputy director of California Solar and Storage Association, a trade organization that represents more than 70 companies that participate in the SGIP program, said work is already underway in some cases.

“Some of our contractors are out literally millions of dollars right now,” he said. “ I'm worried that we're going to have folks go out of business because of this.”

That could be the case for Eriksson’s company, Solar Symphony. More than 100 of the company’s applications to install solar and battery systems at no cost to qualifying customers were approved by Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. Now, Eriksson said, they don’t know if they’ll be paid for projects they’ve already installed.

“We were very excited by the potential to deliver truly no-cost, home-sited solar and batteries to California ratepayers,” Eriksson wrote in a statement to the public utilities commission. “The regulators effectively induced us to commit under one set of rules; we accepted and delivered — and now the terms are changing.”

Eriksson told LAist he could be out of business by June if the state doesn’t release the payments.

Other companies have indefinitely paused installing systems approved by program administrators.

“We've signed contracts with hundreds of low-income families. We've purchased the equipment,” said Vinnie Campo, co-founder of Haven Energy, one of the state’s largest SGIP installers, at a Public Utilities Commission meeting in late April. “Our crews are ready to install, but systems sold in good faith to customers … are sitting in warehouses instead of on homes.”

Seven representatives of solar companies, including a lawyer representing multiple companies in Southern California, expressed their concerns at that meeting.

Lionel Rodriguez of Glendale-based Solar Optimum was one.

“Many people are hurting,” Rodriguez said, “and it's destroying the integrity of our company and also the customer's trust.”

In early May, in response to such concerns, the Public Utilities Commission released another ruling saying administrators can start paying developers when certain documentation has been submitted but that they still could audit any company that receives funds. Meanwhile, utilities have until the end of June 2028 to spend the funds, or else they’ll be returned to the state’s general fund.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman promised at a Tuesday night town hall that MacArthur Park will see “amazing progress” in public safety before the 2028 Olympic Games.

Several community members told LAist they have seen crime return to the Los Angeles park after months of joint drug enforcement operations by the Los Angeles Police Department and federal agencies. Those efforts led to dozens of arrests for alleged drug sales in the area.

An LAPD captain attending the town hall confirmed to LAist that the department is aware of renewed safety problems.

Hochman acknowledged those concerns and said the recent operations made progress and created an opportunity for lasting change.

“If we keep this focus and the energy on this area, MacArthur Park, Skid Row and everything in between,” Hochman said, “then we will see amazing progress before the Olympics, and that is actually a promise.”

Hochman previously promised, during a drug enforcement operation on June 4, to have a picnic at the park on Labor Day. Hochman told attendees he kept that promise when he held an event at the park on Sept. 5 with other local and federal law enforcement officials.

As district attorney, Hochman works with law enforcement agencies to prosecute criminal cases in L.A. County. He said that it will take more work from policymakers and community members to remove the open-air drug market that has been entrenched there for decades.

The area is represented by L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, County Supervisor Hilda Solis, state Assemblymember Mark González and state Sen. María Elena Durazo. Staff members from some of those offices, and the mayor’s office, sat in on the town hall organized by the local nonprofit California Rising.

“Feel free to put the fire under the feet of our politicians,” Hochman told about two dozen residents who attended. “All too often it is easy to spend some effort on something and then get distracted and spend some effort somewhere else.”

'Temporary' relief

Some residents and business owners agreed with Hochman that the large-scale drug enforcement operations from March through June made the area feel safer, at least for a while.

“It was temporary, but we got to see, actually, families at the bus stops with their kids — before it wasn't like that,” Elaine Alaniz told LAist Tuesday. “I think it does help us, but on the other hand I still think that we need more help. It's not just a one, two, three-day thing.”

Alaniz lives nearby and is the president of the Westlake North Neighborhood Council, which begins a block northeast of MacArthur Park.

She said she has seen some crime move away from the park and into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Capt. Ben Fernandes, who leads LAPD’s Rampart Division, said the earlier operations were successful, but there have been some setbacks.

“We made a lot of headway in the beginning,” he said. “There are some issues that we've had some repopulation, especially with addicts.”

Fernandes said that the department will continue to arrest people suspected of selling drugs near the park, while connecting people who are addicted with services to help them get sober and off the streets.

A call for community involvement

Hochman and Fernandes each emphasized that making MacArthur Park a safe and welcoming place can’t be done by law enforcement alone.

“My advice: take the park back — it's your park,” Hochman said at the town hall, calling for community organizations to plan regular outings there. “That starts to send a message that the community really cares about this park.”

He asked that performers like Justin Bieber, who played an impromptu set in the park last month, have more events there as well.

Fernandes said people can get involved to change perceptions about MacArthur Park so it's no longer thought of as a place to go to score drugs.

“What we need to do is — we as a community — come together and show [people using drugs] that it's not their place to go,” he said. “That you're going to be there with your children, with your parishioners, with your friends, with your family.”

Inglewood city officials are launching an audit of their financial relationship with SoFi Stadium and claiming the stadium could owe years of ticket taxes, one month after a judge voided the 2015 contract that brought the stadium to Inglewood. 

The Inglewood City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to commission the audit. Mayor James Butts said the move is a necessary next step after the court ruling, which threw the terms of the financial relationship between the city and Hollywood Park stadium development into question. 

Millions of dollars are at stake for both the city and the stadium businesses. City officials say that the ruling means a cap that limited the amount of admissions tax that Inglewood could collect no longer applies. They also plan to investigate the authenticity of $376 million worth of infrastructure bills Hollywood Park claims the city owes. The findings of the audit could also factor into discussions of how the city will address its current $30.8 million deficit.

The City Council motion — put forward by Butts and co-sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Faulk — requires the city attorney to retain an accounting firm to conduct the audit and report back to the public on its findings within 30 days. It set aside $325,000 from the city’s General Fund to pay for the audit. You can read the city’s full explanation of the audit here.

Butts, who was at the city’s helm a decade ago when developer Stan Kroenke brought his Hollywood Park pitch to Inglewood, said city officials built what they thought was a partnership with their stadium counterparts.

But that partnership has crumbled. Since last summer, the city and stadiums have been slugging it out in a complex series of court cases over the stadium’s contract and Inglewood’s network of video billboards. The conflict has spilled over into the Nov. 3 election via ballot measures that would change the city’s commercial advertising and ticket tax rules. 

The audit approved by the City Council on Tuesday will dig into the entire financial relationship between the stadium and city since 2015, unpacking what is owed and what was received from taxes on everything from tickets to parking. City officials plan to continue auditing the taxes on a quarterly basis into the future.

Still, it’s not guaranteed the city would be able to force the stadium development to pay any debt the audit does claim. Hollywood Park could still appeal the court ruling that voided its contract with Inglewood, while Butts said the city wants to negotiate a new contract to replace it. 

A Hollywood Park spokesperson said the stadium development has lived up to its financial obligations, including paying all of its taxes.

“This is yet another thinly veiled attempt to distract from scrutiny surrounding the City’s own fiscal mismanagement and the questionable actions of its Mayor,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Some locals at Tuesday’s meeting said during public comments they were baffled why the city hadn’t set up an audit process earlier.

“We have needed an audit from day one. We can’t sit here and claim we didn’t know or have an inkling what we were doing with Hollywood Park,” Diane Sambrano said. 

Exterior of Sofi Stadium in Inglewood

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Speaking during the meeting, Butts said the audit was triggered because of the void left by the development agreement and because major events including the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics are about to hit Inglewood.

The mayor first claimed the development agreement was illegal in a letter written directly to Stan Kroenke last year, saying the city’s lawyers made the determination while researching billboard litigation.

Millions in tax revenue at stake

After the judge ruled in agreement with the city, Butts told The LA Local that city officials were still researching the specific implications of the court’s ruling. In Tuesday’s council motion, city staff highlighted what they say is one major change they’ve discovered: There’s no longer a limit on how much admissions tax the city can collect.  

Inglewood collects a 10% tax on tickets sold at SoFi Stadium, but the 2015 initiative that brought the stadium to the city put a cap on that revenue, starting at $15 million a year and increasing annually with inflation. 

The admissions tax cap also happens to be the subject of the current ballot Measure AT. WOW Media, the billboard operator allied with the city in its dispute with the stadium, is funding a campaign in favor of the initiative.

Admissions tax has been a sizable revenue stream for the city — bringing in an average $20 million a year since SoFi Stadium opened — but city officials have said it could be significantly bigger. A city analysis of Measure AT estimated that getting rid of the cap could bring in as much as an extra $50 million in future years. The city did not estimate how much admissions tax revenue it has missed out on while the development agreement was in effect.

The Inglewood audit seeks to clarify basic questions about how taxes are assessed on ticket sales and whether those taxes are actually forwarded to the city. Officials say it will provide transparency about ticket sales, pricing and fees, which have been heavily scrutinized in recent years across the state. 

Gray gets support on proposal for future billboard revenue audit

Councilmember Gloria Gray attempted to amend the audit motion Tuesday, asking the city manager to also audit the revenue the city gets from billboard fees.

“I believe the same standard of financial transparency should apply to every city agreement,” Gray said.

Though her motion didn’t receive a second, Councilmember Eloy Morales said he’d support putting a billboard revenue audit on the council’s agenda in the future. 

“I think we all support all those audits,” Morales said. 

Gray’s move was a rarity for a council that seldom debates motions during public meetings and almost always votes unanimously. The councilmember is currently running for mayor against Butts.

Inglewood pulls in as much as $8 million a year from billboards, according to budget records. Much of that comes from a series of deals the city cut with WOW Media, allowing the billboard company to construct and operate the billboards on public medians and sidewalks. In return, WOW gives the city a cut of ad revenue along with other concessions.

The post Inglewood is investigating if SoFi Stadium owes years’ worth of ticket taxes appeared first on LA Local.