Bright Saver, a nonprofit organization, is working with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) to draft model legislation that would help make plug-in solar accessible to anyone in the U.S.
With plug-in solar, consumers can hang panels from a balcony, attach them to a flat roof, patio or other sun-exposed area, plug into a conventional outlet and immediately start producing electricity. But legislative and regulatory obstacles–designed to ensure that such products are safe–make it difficult for U.S. consumers to take advantage of this technology, said Cora Stryker, co-founder, Bright Saver, which wants to speed deployment of the technology. In Germany, which lacks these obstacles, plug-in solar is popular.
Plug-in solar panels are portable, less expensive than rooftop solar panels and don’t require users to sign interconnection agreements with their utilities.
“They’re so much more versatile. We’re super excited about them because we’re seeing this real explosion in Europe, in Germany in particular, primarily driven by renters in cities who buy these small systems and hang them on their balconies generally,” she said during my Clean Energy Today podcast interview with her and Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director at VPIRG.
The model legislation will first be introduced in Vermont in January, and many other states are interested in introducing similar legislation, she said.
A Utah law, HB 340, aims to accelerate the use of plug-in solar, but has some drawbacks, Stryker said.
It sets the generating capacity of these systems at 1 ,200 watts. The idea is that 1,200 watts is the maximum that would be fed back to the grid.
“We think that’s not the right approach because the limit really has to do with what you feed back into the grid,” Stryker said. “So there are systems right now that have, say, batteries where you can limit the backflow of electricity if the battery fills up. So we think the smarter way to do this is to allow for much greater generating capacity and to limit the backfeeding through a battery or backfeed prevention.”
With some but not all batteries, it’s possible to limit the amount of electricity that would be fed back to the grid, she added.
Bright Saver is now selling the portable plug-in solar panels for $400, and has a waitlist of 2,000 people from all over the U.S., she said.
“Our theory of change is we want to start this movement, we want to make it so that everyone everywhere can have access to solar energy,” said Stryker. “Part of our theory of change is that If we get these into people’s hands, they’ll see them on their neighbor’s front yard and say to themselves, ‘What is that? I want one of those.'”
Listen to my interview with Stryker and Walsh on Apple Podcasts.