“Balcony solar” has been one of the more popular stories of the past year. More and more locations are allowing plug-and-play solar. No need for a permit. No need to wait for months to install solar. No need for a solar installer at all. You just plug in your solar panels and collect the energy. Now, the biggest state of all is on the verge of approving plug-in solar. If California was a country, it would be the 4th largest economy in the world, only trailing the USA as a whole, China, and Germany. It led the USA in solar power installations for a long time, but big cuts to net metering policies in the Golden State have hurt the industry massively. The California Supreme Court just decided to kill efforts to appeal the California Public Utilities Commission’s net metering cuts, but perhaps balcony solar can help boost the industry a bit. The California State Assembly’s Committee on Utilities and Energy just voted 18-0 to advance SB 868, the bill that would allow plug-in solar panels in the state. “SB 868 clears away the needless red tape that currently makes it infeasible for people to use this technology,” Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced the bill, posted following the vote. He added that this could help people to lower their energy bills, and would. naturally add more clean energy in the state. The bill has a couple more steps to go, though. It has to be passed by the Assembly Committee on Appropriations and then it has to b passed by the full Assembly. “Because the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) estimates the bill will result in an ongoing annual cost of between $200,000 and $500,000, it will be placed on the Appropriations committee suspense file and heard in August,” pv-magazine shares. “The California bill is one of 34 plug-in solar bills considered in state legislatures since 2025. The first such bill to be signed into law was Utah’s HB 340 in 2025, which inspired a movement toward state-level action on balcony solar legislation.” It’s true. Whether the name catches people, or just the freedom and lack of red tape, this idea has caught on like wildfire and is popular well beyond typical solar enthusiast circles. If it becomes a possibility in California, perhaps it won’t bring back the ~17,000 jobs lost from the net metering cuts, but it will bring some kind of boost to solar and the economy in California. Plug-in solar is now legal in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, and Virginia. It’s on the verge of being legal in New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. If California joins the party, it would be fun to see how deployments in California and New York compare. Well, California probably has the edge, thanks to tons of sunshine, 44% of the population being renters, high electricity prices, overall solar power awareness there, and the fact that it’s the most populous state in the country. However, there are a lot of apartments in New York City, and New Yorkers have been keen to show Western Conference West Coast people that they shouldn’t be underestimated lately.