TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

If you choose to install solar panels on your home, be aware that you may not have the right to the sunshine they require.

When Mike and Janice Sullivan installed 27 solar panels on their Rio Bravo-area home in 2008, they discovered PG&E's electric meters could run backward. So far the system has paid every PG&E bill in their all-electric house -- with energy to spare.

But now they say their $34,000 investment in renewable energy is in jeopardy because of something quite commonplace: the shade from a neighbor's trees.

The neighbor, Mr. Sullivan says, is "resistant" to the idea of topping the ash trees, which Sullivan freely admits were there more than two years before his solar array.

But as the trees have grown taller, their shade has begun to impact the efficiency of the solar system, Sullivan said, specifically in the fall and winter months when the sun is lower in the sky.

"If you shut down one panel, it affects them all," Mr. Sullivan said.

The Sullivans have offered to pay the cost of trimming the two trees, but their next-door neighbor, Lee Leslie, declined the offer.

"The trees are beautiful," Leslie said. "They shade my house, they beautify my house."

And they reduce the time and cost of running his air conditioning in the warmer months, Leslie said.

Besides that, he doesn't believe the trees are reducing a significant portion of his neighbors' solar generation -- though he acknowledges that could change as the trees are expected to grow taller.

As solar power becomes more popular on residential homes, disputes like this one in northeast Bakersfield are expected to become more common. And the question it raises is likely to be asked more and more often:

Which is greener, a tree or a solar panel?

"We've kept over 40,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere because of our system," Mr. Sullivan said.

And while they love trees, too, when weighing the benefits of the solar system against the benefits taller trees offer, solar wins hands-down, they say.

But ultimately, the law is on his side, Leslie said.

California's 1978 Solar Shade Control Act, which at one time criminalized the shading of solar panels by trees, was amended beginning in 2009. The changes in the law protect trees that were in place before the installation of a solar system.

The law says that a tree cannot cast a shadow that covers more than 10 percent of a solar collector's absorption area at any one time between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. if the tree is planted after the installation of the solar collector.

But the amendment exempted trees planted prior to the installation of a solar system. Also exempted are the replacement of trees that had been growing prior to the installation.

Despite the letter of the law, Sullivan thought he had another chance for relief.

Because outdoor areas in the gated Rio Bravo Phase II neighborhood are considered "common area" and are governed by the neighborhood's homeowners association, Sullivan decided to appeal to the association's five-member board.

Board member Bob Amble said the board recently met with the Sullivans and listened to their appeal. But when he tried to nail down specifics on how much money the Sullivans were losing in the shadows of the trees, he received no answer.

"Four times I asked," he said. "Four times I received no answer."

Both parties had legitimate concerns, Amble said. But with spotty information coming from Mr. Sullivan and the law being on the side of the Leslies, the board ruled on the side of the trees vs. the solar panels.

Sullivan has since said he's losing as much as 80 percent of his energy this time of year -- and if the trees are allowed to continue to grow upward, he believes the loss could be extended to spring and summer as well.

Amble said ideally the neighbors would sit down in good faith and with good intentions to work something out. It shouldn't be up to the "big, bad board," he said, to find a solution to a dispute that should have been, and could have been, worked out with better communication and a neighborly attitude on both sides.

"We never wanted to start a war," said Mrs. Sullivan, who as Janice Brown in 1980 piloted the Solar Challenger aircraft, thereby proving that long-distance solar powered flight was possible.

According to Amble, on late Friday afternoon Mr. Leslie offered to sit down with the Sullivans on Monday, as soon as he returns from an out-of-town trip.

Said Amble, "That's the best solution."