Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: August 28, 2025
Deregulating plug-in solar!
Utah has passed a law deregulating plug-in solar, and other state legislators are planning to introduce bills!
Tell your state leaders to pass a bill deregulating plug-in solar!
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If you’re in Utah, feel free to just thank your state legislators for voting for this!
Reasons For Hope
In early 2025, after Republican legislator Raymond Ward introduced a far-sighted bill, the state of Utah voted to deregulate1 plug-in solar, with unanimous bipartisan support. Many Americans can’t access rooftop solar due to cost, renter status, or other reasons, and plug-in solar, aka “balcony” or “backyard” solar, allows anyone to get their own source of cheap clean power. Now, it looks like Utah could be the start of a nationwide trend, as plug-in solar deployer Bright Saver reports that Maryland state legislator Lorig Charkoudian is planning to introduce a similar bill in the next session!
It is technically legally possible to install plug-in solar in much of the U.S., but it’s prohibitively difficult in practice because it requires the homeowner to submit the same kind of complex, technical diagram-heavy grid interconnection request that you’d need for a full-scale solar farm. As nonprofit Bright Saver puts it: “Right now, in this country, every state except Utah applies the same one-size-fits-all rules meant for rooftop solar systems that are 5–20 times larger. That means even the smallest balcony units — which never send power back to the grid and are essentially invisible to the utility — are sometimes forced into the same interconnection agreements or licensed electrician requirements. Those extra steps can be lengthy and expensive, in some cases nearly doubling the cost of a simple plug-in system.”
The Utah bill deregulating plug-in solar simply created a new legal category for small-scale solar systems under 1200 watts, then said that small-scale solar systems were exempt from grid interconnection agreements (a notorious snarl of onerous red tape) and were allowed a small amount of back feeding. It also releases utilities of liability for small-scale solar, thus winning utility support for the measure.
This was an incredibly simple piece of legislation — just one page, with zero fiscal implications. It’s a bill that gives families the freedom to generate their own clean energy at home without maddening bureaucratic barriers.
The potential of plug-in solar technology is incredible. In Germany, more than 500,000 plug-in solar systems have been installed so far, and major retailer IKEA is now selling integrated kits including both plug-in “balcony” solar arrays and a home battery — a fully independent household clean power plant being sold for 1,229 euros.
Deregulating plug-in solar is a no-brainer for every state in America!
State leaders have a historic opportunity here to empower household energy independence for their constituents and bring forward a future where all Americans can generate their own clean, abundant, affordable electricity. Any state legislator who takes the initiative to introduce a Utah-style plug-in solar bill will be demonstrating true leadership.
Tell your state leaders to pass a bill deregulating plug-in solar!
The first version of this article said that Utah voted to “legalize” plug-in solar — at Bright Saver’s request, we updated that to “deregulate” to make it extra-clear that the current state-level status quo is that plug-in solar is technically legal but regulated like a large power plant so that it’s prohibitively difficult to install in practice.
Long Beach CA would be a great place to support plug in solar as 60%of the people there are rentersand many have balconies. Plug in Solar can be taken with renters when they move and is perfect for reducing utility bills when rents and cost of energy is high.
Love when deregulation does good for the climate!