“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.”
Climate One · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
Asked where balcony or plug-in solar fits in, Nick Josefowitz says outdated building codes and product standards block it across much of the US.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.
Transcript
…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.
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?
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…
Yeah, you're talking my love language now, Nick, as a renter.
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…
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?
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