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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nBright Saver co-founder Rupert Mayer installs plug-in solar panels in the backyard of a home in Berkeley in September. In theory, the savings start after the panels are set up and the system\u00a0is plugged into a standard outlet.Jessica Christian\/S.F. Chronicle<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A year ago, my husband and I joined the clean energy revolution and evicted fossil fuels from our home. They didn\u2019t go quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We cashed in rebates and tax credits \u2014 thanks, President Biden! \u2014 and swapped out our gas-powered appliances for electrics. With all those new, efficient appliances, I expected cheaper utility bills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, they doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only later did I learn that heating your home with electricity costs nearly twice as much as using gas<\/a>. Besides making life more expensive, the complicated reasons<\/a> for that price gap help explain why we\u2019re not moving faster<\/a> to curb greenhouse gas emissions that are endangering life on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rooftop solar could have softened the blow if our roof weren\u2019t so shaded and the price (up to $30,000) wasn\u2019t so high. So we turned down our thermostat, bundled up and fumed over reports of record profits for Pacific Gas & Electric Co.<\/a> in a state with the nation\u2019s second-highest electricity rates<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, however, I\u2019ve been thrilled to learn about a potentially game-changing development: The rapidly emerging market of plug-in solar panels that are cheaper, quicker to deploy and accessible to homeowners with shady roofs or renters with no roofs at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vendors say you can simply set up the panels facing the sun, plug them into a standard outlet<\/a> and start saving. Systems sell for about a 10th of the cost of rooftop solar. Theoretically, you treat them like appliances, with no need to deal with contractors, permits or inspections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople can take action who haven\u2019t been able to take action,\u201d Cora Stryker, a co-founder of Bright Saver, a Bay Area-based nonprofit vendor, told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hundreds of Californians have bought plug-in systems from vendors, including Bright Saver, which is running limited pilots, and CraftStrom, a more established, Houston-based firm that has sold 4,000 systems in 35 states during the last four years, according to its co-founder, Michael Scherer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re selling hundreds of these every week, and 16% of our sales are in California,\u201d Scherer told me. His website promises: \u201cNo permits. No utility. Just power.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Plug-in solar is a modern twist on an older American impulse: DIY power. Around the time of the 1979 oil crisis, Home Power magazine popularized the term \u201cguerrilla solar\u201d<\/a> for handy homeowners who wired up panels without permits. The movement sputtered after utilities and regulators cracked down, and the U.S. rooftop solar industry took off as a legitimate \u2014 albeit expensive, time-consuming, and, ultimately, elitist alternative. Only about 7% of U.S. homes<\/a> now have rooftop solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe took a different path. In Germany, after years of lobbying by clean energy and industry groups, a certification body released the first guideline<\/a> for \u201cbalcony solar\u201d in 2017. Some 4 million Germans<\/a>, most of them unregistered, have since bought plug-in balkonkraftwerke<\/em>, sold in hardware stores for the equivalent of a few hundred dollars<\/a>. Germany also recently strengthened the rights<\/a> of renters to install them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In May, Utah became the first U.S. state<\/a> to exempt small, portable solar devices (under 1,200 watts) from utility interconnection requirements, while also setting basic safety standards. Republican state Rep. Raymond Ward championed the bill after reading about Germany\u2019s market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m like, well, why can\u2019t I buy one of those?\u201d <\/a> Ward told Third Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixteen other states are now considering similar laws, according to Stryker. That includes California, where state Sen. Scott Wiener recently proposed a bill he said would address recent \u201cdisastrous rate hikes.\u201d<\/a> Senate Bill 868<\/a> would create a carve-out for small, plug-in systems \u2014 barring utilities from charging fees or even requesting notification \u2014 while also requiring certified safety features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the writing on the wall, energy companies are scrambling to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe fully support customer-owned clean energy and the growing interest in distributed energy resources,\u201d PG&E spokesperson Paul Doherty told me.\u00a0 Yet they must be \u201cused responsibly,\u201d he added, meaning, among other things, with local building permits and utility interconnection agreements to ensure safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The California Public Utilities Commission<\/a> agrees that local permits and interconnection applications are required, even for customers who plan to limit generation to home consumption. But enforcement is the weak link. As long as the plug-in systems don\u2019t feed into the grid, as many don\u2019t, or cause a fire \u2014 short of home inspections \u2014 regulators can\u2019t detect them. Indeed, Doherty said that PG&E has yet to receive a single application for an interconnection agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn\u2019t mean there won\u2019t be broader impacts. As more customers lower their bills by generating some of their own power, those who can\u2019t will shoulder more utility fixed costs, such as transmission wires and maintenance. UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein called this \u201cthe exploding solar cost shift.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The bright side, Borenstein told me, is that plug-in solar could force a political reckoning in which legislators finally deal with some hard and long-avoided questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTechnology doesn\u2019t wait,\u201d CraftStrom\u2019s Scherer said, adding that before he left his former high-level job with NRG Energy\/Reliant, he told his bosses: \u201cDemocratization of power production is coming, and if you think you can survive by burning oil and selling it, you will die off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now, early plug-in solar adopters are left on their own, trying to sort out competing claims in a fragmented market with more hype than clarity. In a recent interview with PBS, Bright Saver\u2019s Stryker referred to the panels as\u00a0\u201ctiny,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0but as listed on the company\u2019s website, they are about the size of an average door and weigh 45 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe idea that a random middle-aged person is just going to flick a switch is not realistic,\u201d Borenstein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while plug-in systems cost far less than rooftop solar, they aren\u2019t cheap. Bright Saver\u2019s website lists a system with two 400-watt panels plus a microinverter and battery for $3,138<\/a>, which it said can be paid off with savings in 5.8 years. (Tariffs inflate the price, since the supply chain runs through China.) Stryker estimated that such a system would help offset at most just 20%<\/a> of an average household\u2019s energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And as far as the DIY of it all, Bright Saver\u2019s website notes that \u201cminor electrician work may be necessary\u201d for tasks including installing a dedicated circuit and proper outdoor outlet protection. An energy monitor included in the kit to minimize power export to the grid needs to be mounted inside a breaker panel. None of these are jobs I\u2019d trust to a YouTube tutorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, safety concerns aren\u2019t unreasonable, despite Germany\u2019s excellent record<\/a>. Overloading a home with solar power could overtax wires and cause fires<\/a>. Poorly designed or installed systems could export power to the grid unexpectedly, risking harm to line workers in an outage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Jan. 8, UL Solutions, a leading U.S. certification body, released comprehensive performance and safety standards<\/a> for U.S. plug-in solar systems, which should help consumers make easier and wiser choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About Opinion<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight<\/strong> are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect<\/strong> the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more about our transparency and ethics policies<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, the complicated science and politics of plug-in panels have started to overload my neural circuits. For now, I plan to wait until the rules get clearer and comparison shopping gets easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, plug-in solar feels like one of the brightest developments in years in an otherwise discouraging energy landscape. It promises a small wedge of leverage for people like me, who\u2019ve learned the hard way that joining California\u2019s clean-energy revolution can be powerfully expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Katherine Ellison<\/em><\/a> is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent and author\/co-author of 12 nonfiction books.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jan 24, 2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Katherine Ellison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Plug-in solar panels are cheaper, quicker to deploy, and accessible to homeowners with shady roofs or renters with no roofs at all By Katherine Ellison,ContributorUpdated Jan 24, 2026 3:41 p.m. Gift Article Bright Saver co-founder Rupert Mayer installs plug-in solar panels in the backyard of a home in Berkeley in September. 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