As solar spreads across the nation and the world, no one wants to be left behind. Creating more jobs in construction than any other energy based industry, suffering economies are quickly seeing that solar is the way to go in the changing world. Sunny California is of course at the front of the line in the American solar industry. And San Diego is right at the forefront of the California industry.

San Diego is proud to say that they have more rooftops with solar than any other large California city, with over 19,000 kW installed, as shown here. This is no doubt helped by their incentives. The rate for performance-based incentive projects is $0.09/kWh for commercial versus $0.19/kWh for nonprofit and government projects, with additional incentives for residential customers. And the residents are proud of their solar! Residents of Kensington (outside of San Diego), sponsored largely by the California Center for Sustainable Energy are taking part in the Kensington Clean Energy Festival on Saturday, June 26. The festival includes a walking tour of the many efficient and solar electric powered homes, as well as workshops and activities for kids and adults alike. The tours will give visitors a chance to talk to homeowners about why they have chosen to go green and promote solar, and the benefits that it has provided them.

In 2009 groSolar, a Vermont based company, acquired Borrego solar, with an office in San Diego as well as other California locations. With groSolar, Borrego focuses strongly on commercial and government jobs that will help larger entities stay green as they grow.

Beyond having a good number of consumers buying solar electric in San Diego, the city will now also be home to solar manufacturing. In March of this year, Kyocera announced that it would base its first U.S. plant in San Diego. Beyond bringing more jobs to San Diego, the plant will feed the growing clean tech movement and provide even more incentive for Dan Diego’s clean generation solar financing program, which should increase the number of installs in San Diego.

All this, combined with having the state’s attractive solar rebate program, makes San Diego a smart place to buy solar, and an active place to be in the business.