Things Nick Josefowitz Has Said on Podcasts

“Plug-in solar is the idea that you could go down to a Lowe's or a Home Depot, buy a plug-in solar system for a few hundred bucks, take it home and plug it into an outlet the same day, hang the panel on a balcony. In Germany there are millions of these systems. In the US it's functionally illegal in much of the country.” — Nick Josefowitz, Climate One

Asked where balcony or plug-in solar fits in, Nick Josefowitz says outdated building codes and product standards block it across much of the US. He notes renters and apartment dwellers could benefit most.

Climate One · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →

Climate One Around 28:09 into the episode

Nick Josefowitz

…of them are struggling with sort of higher utility bills. And four out of five of them feel absolutely no control over it. And home solar and batteries gives American families the ability to take control back over their utility bills. And I think that's a really powerful thing to let people do.

Kousha Navidar

Where does plug-in solar fit into this picture? Are the barriers the same with plug-in solar and with batteries when you just look at how difficult it is to get home solar installed?

Nick Josefowitz

Yeah. So what we've been talking about up till now is sort of your traditional home solar. There's, you know, a sort of installer climbing up on your roof, drilling holes in your roof and hardwiring this stuff into your home. Plug-in solar is the idea that you could basically go down to a Lowe's or a Home Depot and you could buy a plug-in solar system for a few hundred bucks, take it home and plug it into an outlet same day, hang the panel on a balcony, lean it up against your house. And it is the cheapest and easiest way for American families to be able to save money on their utility bills with home solar and batteries. And in Germany, there's like millions of these systems that have been installed. And unfortunately, in the US, it's sort of functionally illegal in much of the country. Yeah. And it's, you know, the same types of challenges that in most of the country, utilities require you to go through a lengthy interconnection process in some cases where you're that the cost of the interconnection approval is higher than the cost of the plug-in solar system itself. The bodies that set the building…

Kousha Navidar

Yeah, you're talking my love language now, Nick, as a renter.

Nick Josefowitz

Yeah. And it's interesting. So you live in Brooklyn, right? Yeah. So there was a bill to legalize plug-in solar in New York that passed this year, and it's still sitting on Governor Hochul's desk. And she hasn't signed it yet. And so there was a hilarious sort of protest that happened where plug-in…

Kousha Navidar

Since this episode is about the new outlook for solar, what other changes are you seeing in the industry that you feel would be worth pointing out?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

“The average American family is paying $36,000 for the same home solar system that an Australian family would spend $6,000 on. It's effectively the same panels, same wires. The big cost difference comes from red tape.” — Nick Josefowitz, Climate One

The host noted that home solar is far cheaper in some other countries and asked why. Nick Josefowitz, who works with state governments on permitting, says local permits and utility approvals turn a few days' work into months.

Climate One · 2026-11-06 Permalink → Listen →

Climate One Around 19:21 into the episode

Ariana Brocious

And I'm Ariana Brocious. Kusha, I love this job because I'm always learning new things, you know. And something I learned in the last year that frankly really surprised me is how much cheaper it is to install home solar panels in other countries besides ours.

Kousha Navidar

Yeah, we're talking like 80% cheaper. It's really dramatic. And as I learned from our next guest, a lot of that has to do with everyone's favorite thing: red tape. I talked to Nick Josefowitz of the Energy Affordability Nonprofit Permit Power, and he laid it all out quite clearly.

Nick Josefowitz

So the average American family is paying $36,000 for the same home solar system that an Australian family would spend $6,000 on. And it's effectively the same panels, same wires, that type of stuff. And the big cost difference comes from red tape. And that's the kind of local government permitting and then the utility approval process that you have to go through in the US that takes what most Australian families would be able to do in a few days and drags it out in the US to several months, sometimes if you're really unlucky over a year. And, you know, time is money. And so not only does it add an enormous amount of costs and delays, it also makes it much more difficult to sell these products. And so companies have to spend more on sales and marketing. And it kind of creates this negative spiral.

Kousha Navidar

So in these other countries like Australia, for instance, it's faster, more efficient, less bureaucratic block holding to actually get the panels approved and installed.

Nick Josefowitz

Absolutely. So in In Australia, it takes a few days. The process that you have to go through to get the approval from your local government and from your utility is incredibly streamlined. They really want to make it as easy as possible for families to save money by installing home solar and…

Kousha Navidar

So, how do you fix it then? I mean, I guess that's why your organization, your work exists, right?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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