Solar company in Davis, CA

• CountyYolo County
• Electric utilityPG&E
• Permits issued byCity of Davis Building Division
• ZIP codes served95616, 95618

Solar quotes for Davis vary far more than they should, and the reason is usually that the company writing them does not know the area. Davis is served by PG&E, permitted through City of Davis Building Division, and has a housing stock with its own particular quirks. All three change the answer.

Davis roofs: what we typically find

One of the most energy-conscious housing stocks in California — lots of 1970s passive solar design, plus new all-electric construction east of campus.

Davis has a long head start on solar: many homes were built with orientation in mind, and the city’s permit process is well practised. Expect a straightforward plan check.

Neighbourhoods we work in across Davis include Village Homes, Wildhorse, Mace Ranch, North Davis, Old East Davis — and the surrounding area within the 95616, 95618 ZIP codes.

Your utility is PG&E — which puts you under net billing

Davis is served by PG&E, which means new solar customers fall under California’s net billing tariff (commonly called NEM 3.0). The essential point is this: power you export to the grid is credited at close to the utility’s avoided cost, not at the retail rate you pay to buy it back.

That single change reshapes how a Davis system should be designed:

• Self-consumption is worth far more than export. Using your own generation as it is produced beats selling it and buying it back later.
• Storage genuinely changes the model. A battery closes the gap between the low export credit and the high evening import rate. We price systems both ways so you can see the difference rather than take our word for it.
• Oversizing is penalised. Under the older retail-rate net metering, surplus generation banked at full value. It does not any more, so sizing to your actual usage matters more than it used to.

PG&E customers are also the ones who can access SGIP storage rebates, with substantially larger amounts for high fire-threat districts, medical baseline and income-qualified households. See our 2026 incentives guide and the utility comparison.

Permits and inspection in Davis

Your solar permit is issued by City of Davis Building Division. We prepare the structural and electrical drawings, submit the plan check package, respond to any corrections and coordinate the inspection. From your side the process should be invisible: you hear from us when there is something to report, not before.

Plan check turnaround varies by jurisdiction and it is the single most variable part of the schedule. It is also the reason we will not promise you a firm switch-on date before the permit is actually in hand — anyone who does is guessing.

Fire code roof access pathways and setbacks are designed into the layout from the start rather than negotiated with an inspector afterwards. That matters more on complex and steep roofs, and it is a common cause of delay on installations designed by people who do not work here often.

What we check on a Davis site audit

• Roof planes and orientation — pitch, azimuth and usable unshaded area on each plane.
• A full-year shade study, measured on site. Winter shade is worse than summer shade because the sun sits far lower, and an aerial estimate will not catch it.
• Roof age and covering. If the roof has under about seven to ten years left, we will tell you to re-roof first — removing and reinstalling an array later costs $2,000–$4,000.
• Structural adequacy — rafter dimension, spacing, span and condition.
• Main service panel — busbar rating and available breaker space. This is the most common cause of a quote changing after signature elsewhere, and it is entirely predictable at the audit.
• Twelve months of your usage, read from your PG&E account, so the system is sized to what you actually consume.

What we install in Davis

Why Davis homeowners use a local installer

Solar is sold nationally and installed locally, and the gap between those two facts is where most bad quotes come from. A company modelling Davis from another state does not know that your utility is PG&E, that your permit runs through City of Davis Building Division, or what it will find when it opens up the roof. We do, because we are here.

That is not a slogan — it is the difference between a quote that holds and a quote that grows by four thousand dollars after the site audit.

Nearby areas we serve

• Auburn solar company
• Cameron Park solar company
• Placerville solar company
• Dixon solar company
• Vacaville solar company
• Fairfield solar company

See the full Sacramento-region service area for all 36 cities and towns, each with its own utility and permitting authority listed.