The bill, S.B. 1652, was passed by the California state Senate, and is now in committee before the state Assembly. It would require that, starting in 2006, a yet-to-be-determined percentage of all new homes in sizable new developments be required to get some of their energy from solar panels on the roof. According to the California Building Industry Association, in 2006 about 135,000 single-family homes will be built in California.

California is currently the third-largest market for solar power in the world, after Japan and Germany, according to Environment California. But even so there are just a few new housing developments scattered around sunny parts of the state, such as the Cherry Blossom subdivision in Watsonville, near the Adelmans, that market solar energy as a feature. Most solar systems, like the Adelmans', are installed on a one-off basis by environmentally conscious homeowners through costly retrofits.

Solar technology has fallen in price some 85 percent since the 1980s, but it's still subsidized by some forward-looking states in an effort to make it financially viable. Environmental groups, and the sponsor of the legislation, state Sen. Kevin Murray, a Democrat from Los Angeles, predict that the regulatory kick of this legislation could help costs come down even more.

"It's a technology that is coming down in price, and it's been around long enough to verify its value. If we jump-start the demand for it, the price will come down significantly," says Sen. Murray.

"It will make it mainstream, as opposed to the kind of high-tech, environmentalist niche that's retrofitting their homes. We need to get it into suburbia in a meaningful way," says Chiano.

The California Building Industry Association is opposed to the regulation.

"What the legislature in this bill is trying to do is accomplish an energy-savings policy on the backs of new home buyers. I think it's a little bit misleading to suggest to the public that for $20,000 a home, we're going to save enough energy to solve the state's energy problems," says Tim Coyle, senior vice president of governmental affairs for the association. "It's a promising technology, but an untimely and inappropriate tax on home buyers."

Del Chiano disagrees. The going price for a 2 kilowatt system retrofitted onto an existing house is now only $14,000, and the cost for a system built into a new house should be considerably less. By baking the cost of the solar system into a standard 30-year mortgage, she says, a homeowner would be breaking even or even saving money.

"Every time you tell any business what to do, they don't like it," adds Sen. Murray. "Anytime there is anything that costs them any money they say it must be horrible for the world. They're just inflating the costs, because they don't want to do it."

Tim Merrigan, senior program manager for the Zero Energy Homes Initiative at the National Renewable Energy Lab, which works with developers to voluntarily build solar into new homes projects in California, Nevada and Arizona, says that some of the developers he's worked with have been able to sell solar-powered homes at a premium. But he isn't enthusiastic about mandates: "This is something that the home builder can offer to the home buyer, and make a profit. Starting to say that it's mandatory maybe sends the wrong message to home builders."

To which the Adelmans, or any other socially responsible, energy-conscious consumer, might respond: The state mandates all kinds of details of home construction, from electrical wiring to smoke alarms to whether you can add a bungalow in your backyard. Why not mandate a cleaner future?

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