The way county Supervisor Dianne Jacob sees it, regional leaders were on track to set a wimpy goal for homegrown sun power.

So she objected strongly when the San Diego Association of Governments board got its first look recently at a rough draft of a blueprint for the county's energy future.

That draft said the region should use energy more efficiently, modernize its electric grid and boost reliance on green power to the point that sun, wind and other clean sources account for half of local electricity by 2030.

But the plan focuses far more on large, remote commercial solar and wind farms than on the small panels people put on their roofs.

"There is no reason why the San Diego County region can't be energy independent," Jacob said Thursday. "We have all the sun that we need. And it's clean, green, safe energy."

SANDAG's draft policy suggested boosting the amount of sun power generated by residential rooftop panels from 50 megawatts today to 210 megawatts by 2020 and 249 megawatts by 2030.

A megawatt is the standard yardstick for measuring large amounts of electricity, and most of the time it is enough to keep the lights on in 650 homes. However, on summer days, the 3.4 million people in San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s service area use up to 5,000 megawatts. And that annual peak use is projected to grow to 6,218 megawatts by 2030.

For the moment, rooftop solar panels are capable of supplying just 1 percent of the region's power on hot days. Under the proposed blueprint, that proportion would grow to a modest 4 percent by 2030.

With interest in rooftop solar panels soaring in one of the nation's sunniest regions, Jacob figures San Diego County can -- and must -- do better.

"I think these targets are way low," Jacob said. "I was shocked when I saw that report."

Jacob, the county supervisor who represents Ramona, Poway and largely rural East County, said she would prefer to set targets 10 times as high as those in the original proposal.

Her concern sparked a lively discussion that spilled into Thursday's meeting of the SANDAG energy working group. No vote was taken Thursday, but group Chairwoman Carrie Downey of Coronado said later there was a consensus to increase the targets.

However, Downey said it is unclear how aggressive the goals will be.

Scott Anders, director of the Energy Policy Initiatives Center at the University of San Diego and an expert on green energy, said it is probably unrealistic to expect solar panels atop people's homes to provide 1,000 megawatts or more by 2020. But the preliminary 2020 goal of 210 megawatts is well below what is achievable.

"The right answer is somewhere in between," Anders said.

Whatever the magic number is, Bob Noble, owner of a La Jolla solar company and chairman of the California Center for Sustainable Energy, said the region ought to set its sights high.

"We should have extremely aggressive goals," Noble said.

Adoption set for October

SANDAG writes a regional energy strategy once every several years. The first one was published in 1979. Updates were completed in 1984, 1994 and 2003.

Now the association is looking to write another one.

Its energy committee is scheduled to finish the draft June 25 and present it to the public July 9 at a workshop at the California Center for Sustainable Energy in San Diego, Downey said.

The board then is scheduled to adopt the blueprint in October.

Brian Brokowski, a spokesman for SDG&E, said 6,600 homes in San Diego County use some form of solar energy, and if all of their systems are operating at capacity they can generate more than 50 megawatts.

While that may not sound like much, nearly one-third of that 50-megawatt capacity -- 16 megawatts -- was added just last year. According to a Thursday report by CNNMoney.com, only two regions of the country added more home sun-power systems in 2008, and both were in California.

Topping the list was Northern California's Pacific Gas & Electric Co., whose customers added 84.9 megawatts of home solar power in 2008. Southern California Edison's customers installed the second most, at 32.4 megawatts.

Brokowski said the No. 3 ranking suggests that SDG&E, which offers financial incentives to builders who put up houses with solar panels, is helping to advance the cause of homegrown solar.

"We strongly support the priority of making California a national leader in solar and making San Diego a national leader in solar," he said.

Sunniest corner of the state

Jacob wasn't impressed by the ranking, however, given how SDG&E stacks up against the other two major urban utilities in California.

"We are the sunniest corner of the state and yet our local monopoly is at the bottom of a pack of three," Jacob said. "Northern California is cloudy half the year, but PG&E somehow managed to install almost five times the amount of PV (photovoltaic solar power) as sunny San Diego."

Anders said the key to getting many times more rooftop power will be financial incentives, given the high cost of installing panels. They typically cost $25,000 to $60,000, depending on the size.

And it is unclear what incentives will be available.

For example, federal tax credits and state tax rebates through the California Solar Initiative make installing panels on the roof attractive to many. But Anders said the state rebates run out in 2016.

Homegrown solar also would get a boost if proposed legislation passes one day to allow homeowners to sell back surplus electricity to the local utility.

"This would bust open the whole solar energy industry in this region," Jacob said.

But for the second year in a row, legislation to do away with the prohibition against selling surplus power has been killed.

If families generate more power than they use in a particular month, they do get credit for that. And that credit can be used to offset the extra electricity they buy from the local utility in a month when their solar panels generate less than they need. But, if at the end of the year they have generated more than they have used, families can't get paid for having sent electricity back to the grid.

One bill that did get signed into law last year -- Assembly Bill 811 -- could make solar affordable to the masses.

That legislation allows cities and counties to create programs that offer 20-year loans to homeowners for installing solar, and lets them repay the money through annual property-tax assessments. And San Diego County, Encinitas and Solana Beach are exploring such programs. But officials said that finding the cash required to launch those programs is proving to be a daunting task in an economic downturn.

Call staff writer Dave Downey at 760-745-6611, ext. 2623.