The San Jose Mercury is reporting that a new 455-home subdivision that is set to open in Brentwood, California in the San Jose area later this year will be the largest all-solar development in California to be built as part of a new statewide solar initiative, according to the California state energy regulators.

California’s San Jose-based Pinn Brothers Fine Homes, who specialize in building new homes, said that its Palmilla subdivision, currently under construction in central Brentwood, will be standard-equipped with solar-electric energy systems.

California’s San Jose-based Pinn Brothers Fine Homes said that although solar-electric energy systems cost an average of $25,000 per house, in a housing project where the starting home price will be $400,000 +/-, Pinn Brothers Fine Homes says it doesn't intend to pass that solar energy systems cost on to home buyers. The weakened California housing market simply won't bear it, said Dale Garren, vice president of the company's East Bay California division.

California’s San Jose-based Pinn Brothers Fine Homes said that the move to solar power comes out of a commitment to sustainability. From this point forward the California’s San Jose-based Pinn Brothers Fine Homes will use only solar energy systems in its future single-family projects, which now include a couple of thousand homes scheduled to go up in the next five years.