“We had balcony solar legislation in Hawaii that did not pass this past year. There were lots of reasons, but the only truly viable one was that there was not a UL certification to provide that sort of safety. Now that is very much in place, and it seems like this is going to open a pretty good floodgate for the market.”
CleanTech Talk — Solar, Batteries, EVs, AI · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
Reacting to his guest's mention of new UL safety standards for plug-in solar, the host explains why a Hawaii bill failed and why he expects that to change. Safety certification, not demand, was the bottleneck for legalization.
Transcript
…and obviously has potential to go everywhere. So it's pretty exciting. Let's talk a little bit about it. So plug-in storage and plug-in solar and storage. What is your view on it right now? Like tell the audience about it. What does it look like for the average person and how they can adopt it?
…to different regulations, different jurisdictions. And so we certainly have products today that comply with a lot of the standards, but we're also just waiting for other states to adopt the standards as well as working with UL on new standards that would come out in the market in the near future.
Yeah, that last part's really critical. So Underwriters Lab, UL, does the certification for a lot of products and provides safety and just reassurance really to the general consumer and obviously helps with regulations so that we can have a very standardized set of offerings in a product so people can trust that an e-bike is going to be safe or a balcony solar device is going to be safe if it has that ul certification which is Is now more and more just becoming the standard. It was, so I live in Hawaii and we had balcony solar legislation did not pass this past year. And there was lots of issues, lots of reasons for it. The only like truly viable reason was that there was not a UL certification to provide that sort of safety. Now that is very much in place. And so that is that is it seems like this is going to open a pretty good floodgate for the market. And I presume here in Hawaii, it'll pass next year. Our legislative session is in the spring, January to March, April kind of timeframe. So I presume it'll pass. It's exceptionally popular out here. And our electric bills are very high. Our kilowatt…
Yeah. And I think a lot of states too are, I mean, we know a lot of states are under a lot of strain with utility, with people drawing more power. You talk about data centers consuming more power. And so I think a lot of states are looking for alternative energy solutions from a from a, you know…
For sure. Yeah. And especially if they have storage and if there's time of use pricing, then obviously that storage will be exceptionally powerful in terms of saving them money on their electric. Let's talk. So with regard to the technical aspects of this thing, 1,200 watts is kind of the max…
it's anywhere from 800 to 1,200 watts, depending on the space, on the state.
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