By 2027? Why not now? These things have never been cheaper. Mandate batteries as well, LiFePo is cheap as hell and it would save so much money it’s stupid not to.
To allow the supply chain to adjust so we don’t cause a sudden shortage skyrocketing the price of solar, making homes more expensive to build or delaying construction
A lot of new build are basically copy pastes of the same design, so companies have time to properly adjust designs for them and not just haphazardly slap them on to existing ones which could cause problems
Red tape and Bureaucracy. Updating laws and regulation takes time, then there’s risk assessments environmental planning, maybe adjustments to the grid layout on new estates.
Building takes years. You have to subdivide, plan for utilities, stormwater and traffic, permit the buildings, etc, and suddenly invalidating a bunch of stuff midway through the process they just picked a date 2 years out to avoid the legal and administrative nightmare of yanking existing permits and making them re-design.
Typically when code changes existing permits are grandfathered in, they don’t pull outstanding permits and make them comply with new code. For something as relatively minor as residential solar you should really only need a few months notice at most I would think. Like either the plans are drafted and ready for submission soon or you’re still in the planning phase and just add panels.
By 2027? Why not now? These things have never been cheaper. Mandate batteries as well, LiFePo is cheap as hell and it would save so much money it’s stupid not to.
Educated guess:
To allow the supply chain to adjust so we don’t cause a sudden shortage skyrocketing the price of solar, making homes more expensive to build or delaying construction
A lot of new build are basically copy pastes of the same design, so companies have time to properly adjust designs for them and not just haphazardly slap them on to existing ones which could cause problems
Red tape and Bureaucracy. Updating laws and regulation takes time, then there’s risk assessments environmental planning, maybe adjustments to the grid layout on new estates.
Building takes years. You have to subdivide, plan for utilities, stormwater and traffic, permit the buildings, etc, and suddenly invalidating a bunch of stuff midway through the process they just picked a date 2 years out to avoid the legal and administrative nightmare of yanking existing permits and making them re-design.
Typically when code changes existing permits are grandfathered in, they don’t pull outstanding permits and make them comply with new code. For something as relatively minor as residential solar you should really only need a few months notice at most I would think. Like either the plans are drafted and ready for submission soon or you’re still in the planning phase and just add panels.
If the new rule is all new houses are required to have solar, that’s not a change to the solar code.
And there are other implications, such as all roofs having to be designed to accommodate solar, from structural elements to orientation of faces.