Solar panels in Sun Valley
Solar panels in Sun Valley have to suit two very different kinds of building: the plants and warehouses on land zoned for manufacturing, about a quarter of the neighborhood, and houses that mostly went up in the 1940s and 1950s. On the hillside above Glenoaks Boulevard, a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone adds its own roof rules. Sun Valley lies entirely within the City of Los Angeles, so LADBS issues the permits and LADWP, the city's utility, supplies the power.
Older houses, Burbank ZIP codes and the bill that decides your design
County Assessor records count more than 6,500 detached houses inside the Sun Valley neighborhood council's boundary. Their median year built is 1950, three in four were finished between 1940 and 1959, and the typical one has about 1,300 square feet of living space.
A house that age raises two questions first. How many layers of roofing are up there? LADBS waives the separate structural permit for a flush-mounted home array only on a roof with one layer and no sagging, among other conditions. And can the main electrical panel take a solar breaker on top of air conditioning and an EV charger? If not, an electrical panel upgrade joins the project.
Along the Burbank line, addresses mislead. About 1,100 single-family parcels in Sun Valley carry Burbank's 91504 ZIP code, including some 860 condominiums built in the late 1970s on Via Roma, Via Venezia and the other Via streets. Look one up in the Census Bureau's address tool and it comes back as a Burbank address inside Los Angeles city limits, so the permit comes from LADBS.
Then read the utility name on your bill. Burbank Water and Power puts customers who apply for solar permits after January 1, 2026 on net billing. LADWP, owned by the City of Los Angeles, keeps its own net metering program, explained in our guide to LADWP solar net metering.
Heat matters too. NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for its weather station at the Burbank airport, less than half a mile south of Sun Valley, average 54 days a year at 90°F or hotter. Panels convert a little less sunlight when hot, so ask for an estimate built on local temperatures and a full year of bills.
Fire-zone rules on the hillside above Glenoaks
The City's fire map and CAL FIRE's 2025 map both rate the slope above Glenoaks Boulevard a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. It covers about 1,800 houses and condominiums, one in five of Sun Valley's single-family parcels, on streets such as Glencrest Drive, Vine Valley Drive, Outland View Drive and most of the Via streets, plus a pocket near Stonehurst Avenue.
Three solar rules follow. LADBS requires the panels and racking to carry a Class A fire rating as a set wherever the roof must be Class A, as it must here. LADBS's fire-zone checklist, which reaches High zones too, requires a Class A covering whenever half or more of a roof is replaced within 12 months and bans wood shakes and shingles outright, so replace a tired roof before the panels go up; lifting an array off later is the job of our panel removal and reinstall service.
The third covers a carport, detached garage or patio trellis. It is exempt from the Fire Department's rooftop paths but, in this zone, must meet the department's ground-mount brush rules. At a house or duplex, clear weeds and dead plants within 10 feet of the panels and keep growth there at 3 inches or less; at a condominium complex or business, that ring is 20 feet.
The same hillside sits in Tier 2 of the state utility commission's High Fire Threat District map. LADWP's wildfire plan, updated in June 2025, counts part of the Verdugo Mountains among the city's high fire threat areas and says it may de-energize lines during a wildfire. Without storage, a grid-tied home's panels go dark in an outage, so here a battery is chiefly a backup decision; our guide to solar batteries in Los Angeles weighs it.
Warehouse and factory roofs in the Northeast Valley's industrial base
The City's 1999 community plan credits the Sun Valley–La Tuna Canyon area with the highest concentration of mineral processing in Los Angeles, from rock and gravel mining to cement and concrete processing. Assessor records list about 840 industrial parcels inside Sun Valley's council boundary, with some 14 million square feet of buildings; 60 hold 50,000 square feet of buildings or more. More than 30 industrial parcels, mostly on San Fernando Road north of the airport, carry Burbank's 91505 ZIP code, so check the bill's utility name there too.
Commercial roofs follow different Fire Department rules. LAFD Requirement No. 96 calls for a clear strip at least 6 feet wide around the roof edge, or 4 feet when either side of the building is 250 feet or shorter, plus paths along both center lines, and no array longer than 150 feet in either direction. LAFD approves those plans before installation and inspects the work.
Unanchored, weighted racking on a flat roof needs more: a sliding test by a City-approved lab on the same type of roofing, an engineer's analysis showing the array adds no more than 5% to the demand on the roof framing and 10% on the lateral system (or else a structural upgrade), and a maintenance affidavit the owner records with the County. A carport over the parking lot, outside the rooftop path rules, is sometimes simpler.
The federal investment credit for business solar, 48E, still exists in 2026, and our commercial solar page explains its deadlines. LADWP's rules forbid anyone else from selling energy to its customers, so a business there buys or leases the system.
Panels that stopped producing? Our solar repair service works on systems other companies installed, and new home systems start on our solar installation page. Next door are solar in North Hollywood to the south, solar in Arleta to the west and solar in Burbank to the southeast. Every community we cover is on our Southern California service areas page.
Sun Valley solar questions
Does LADWP or Burbank Water and Power serve Sun Valley?
LADWP. Sun Valley is part of the City of Los Angeles, whose own utility is LADWP. Along the Burbank line, about 1,100 Sun Valley homes carry Burbank's 91504 ZIP code and some businesses north of the airport carry 91505, so go by the utility named on your bill; Burbank Water and Power credits solar exports under different rules.
Is my Sun Valley home in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone?
Quite possibly, if it is on the hillside above Glenoaks Boulevard; very unlikely on the flats below. The City's map and CAL FIRE's 2025 map both put about one in five Sun Valley houses and condominiums in the zone. Check your parcel on ZIMAS. Inside the zone, a replacement roof and the solar assembly must both be Class A.
What permits does a solar project in Sun Valley need?
LADBS issues them. A house or duplex system of 10 kW or less, on a service panel rated 225 amps or less, can be permitted online if it meets the department's other limits, and a paired battery also goes to the Fire Department for plan check. Commercial and industrial systems go through plan check and need Fire Department approval. We handle the permits and the separate LADWP application.
Can my condominium association block solar on the Via streets?
Not outright. California's Civil Code bars an association from a general policy against rooftop solar on the building you live in, or from requiring an owners' vote to approve it, though it may set reasonable conditions. An application it has not denied in writing within 45 days generally counts as approved. On a roof shared with other owners, expect to notify each owner in the building and carry homeowner liability coverage.
How do I choose the best solar company in Sun Valley?
Ask each company three Sun Valley questions. Did they confirm from your bill which utility serves the address, especially one with a Burbank ZIP code? If the lot is in the fire zone above Glenoaks, does the quote name Class A rated panels and racking and say whether the roof should be replaced first? And who services the system later? Collective Solar designs for LADWP, handles the LADBS permit and the LADWP application, repairs systems other companies installed, and holds a 4.8 Google rating from 50 reviews.
Solar in Sun Valley, by the numbers
Solar contractors pulled 1,110 permits on houses in Sun Valley between January 2013 and May 2023, with the most in 2015.
1,110
solar permits on houses, January 2013 to May 2023
2015
the busiest year, with 180 permits
140
permits in 2022, the last full year the City has published
| Year | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permits | 44 | 50 | 180 | 171 | 76 | 69 | 63 | 110 | 159 | 140 | 48 |
*January to May 19. Source: City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety electrical permits, through May 19, 2023, the latest the City has published. Counts permits on one- and two-family homes pulled by solar contractors inside the Sun Valley neighborhood council boundary. A permit is not a home: one job can need more than one permit, and solar put in by general electricians isn't counted, so read these as a measure of activity, not a count of homes.
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