California just legalized plug-in balcony solar. Here’s what a kit is worth in your state

On September 30, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 868. It lets Californians plug a small solar kit into an ordinary wall outlet without asking the utility first. The law takes effect January 1, 2027. It caps each home at 1,200 W of output, requires devices certified by UL or an equivalent lab, and bars utilities from charging fees or requiring permission. Unless lawmakers extend it, it expires at the start of 2030.^[1]

The idea comes from Germany, where “balcony power plants” are a mass-market product. About 430,000 were registered there in 2025 alone.^[19] Utah brought it to the US in 2025. Then came this year: pv magazine counts 35 states that considered a plug-in bill in 2026,^[1] and Maine, Maryland, Vermont, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, New Hampshire and New Jersey signed theirs before California did.^[4]

What these laws change is paperwork, not physics. Wiring a generator into a home's circuits normally means applying to the utility for interconnection, the process a rooftop installer goes through. The new laws waive that for small, certified kits.

1. May 2024

   Germany raises its plug-in limit to 800 W and drops sign-up with the grid operator.^[18]

2. May 7, 2025

   Utah’s HB 340 takes effect: the first US law letting a small solar kit plug into a wall outlet.^[2]

3. 2025

   Germany registers about 430,000 more plug-in units in a single year.^[19]

4. Jan 8, 2026

   UL launches certification to UL 3700, a safety outline written for plug-in solar.^[5]

5. Apr–Sep 2026

   Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and New Jersey sign laws.^[4]

6. Jul 2026

   The first microinverters certified to UL 3700 are announced, from Hoymiles and APsystems.^[11]

7. Aug 27, 2026

   Plug-in solar up to 800 W becomes legal in Great Britain.^[15]

8. Sep 30, 2026

   California signs SB 868 and becomes the 10th state. Its law takes effect January 1, 2027.^[1]

Pick a state. The output comes from NASA's 20-year sun record for a panel hanging straight down a south-facing railing, shown next to the same panel tilted toward the sun. The dollar figure assumes the home uses about 70% of what the kit makes as it makes it, at the state's average residential price.

New Mexico has the strongest railing sun in the country: about 972 kWh a year from an 800 W kit. Yet it ranks 16th on savings, because a kilowatt-hour there costs 14.8¢. The kits pay back fastest where electricity is dearest: California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

That is why the first state is not the best one. In Utah, an 800 W railing kit saves about $79 a year at 13.2¢, so a $1,000 kit takes 13 years to earn back. The same kit in California, at 33.2¢, saves about $208 and pays back in 4.8 years. At the bottom of the table, Louisiana saves $65 a year.

These figures run lower than most online balcony-solar calculators, on purpose. Those usually assume panels tilted toward the sun and a home that uses every kilowatt-hour the kit makes. A balcony kit usually hangs flat on a railing, and a home without a battery uses about 70% of what it makes as it makes it. Tilted, with every kilowatt-hour used, the same 800 W kit in California would be worth about $499 a year.

A panel hung flat against a railing faces the horizon. That suits the low winter sun and wastes the high summer sun. NASA's 20-year record shows by how much. Across all 51 locations, a railing gets a median 96% of the December sunlight a tilted panel gets, but only 44% of June's. Over a full year it gets 65%.

So a railing kit's output is flatter through the year than a rooftop's, and its best month falls outside May to August in all 51 locations. In both Utah and California it peaks in October.

Three things follow. If you can tilt the panels instead, on a floor stand or a patio, the same kit makes about 54% more a year. A balcony overhead costs a railing panel less than you might expect, because it mostly blocks the high summer sun the railing was already missing. And direction matters more than tilt: modelled for Berlin, a vertical panel facing east makes about half of what a tilted, south-facing one does.^[20]

A kit without a battery feeds the outlet it is plugged into. Whatever is running at that moment, the fridge, the router, the things on standby, uses that power first. The rest flows out to the grid, for nothing in most of these states. In Connecticut, without a net-metering meter, it is billed to you as usage. The UK government modelled an 800 W kit in an average home with no battery and found the home used 62% to 72% of what the kit made.^[16] Germany's consumer agency puts a single 400 W railing module at about 280 kWh a year, of which about 200 kWh replaces grid power.^[17] The dollar figures in this story use 70%.

A battery fixes that by saving the midday surplus for the evening. That is what the all-in-one balcony systems sell. The one we found on sale in the US, EcoFlow's STREAM Ultra, lists at $1,399, or $1,599 with its 1,200 W microinverter. For now, EcoFlow's page limits plug-and-play installation to Utah.^[12] Check if it's on sale at EcoFlow

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The caps are about the wiring in your walls. A household circuit has a breaker that limits what comes in from the grid. A plug-in kit pushes its own current in from the other end, and the breaker never sees it. At 120 volts, 1,200 W is 10 amps. If the kit sits between the breaker and a heavy load on the same circuit, the stretch of wire to that load can carry the breaker's full current plus the kit's. UL puts it plainly: combined current from the utility and the kit “can exceed conductor ratings without tripping the circuit breaker.”^[7] The caps, the certification rules and UL 3700 are all written around that risk.

• ✓Check the date, not just the law. Four of the ten states have signed laws that are not in effect yet: California, Virginia and New Hampshire on January 1, New Jersey on March 1.
• ✓Read your state’s fine print. Maine wants an electrician and a dedicated circuit above 420 W. Maryland wants notice before you install. Vermont requires a smart meter. Connecticut bills exported power to you as usage unless you have a net-metering meter. Pick your state in the state desk above for the details.
• ✓Buy a kit certified for plug-in use, and check which plug it uses. Vermont, Maine and New Jersey name UL 3700. UL told Vermont’s legislature that UL 3700 requires its own plug and receptacle, not an ordinary household outlet, so a certified kit may need an electrician to fit the outlet it plugs into.^[6]
• ✓Stay under the cap. It counts the AC output of everything plugged in at one home: 1,200 W in nine of the ten states, 1,920 W in Colorado.
• ✓Pick the circuit with care. Use a circuit with little else on it, and never an extension cord or power strip. UL’s own warning: combined current from the grid and the kit “can exceed conductor ratings without tripping the circuit breaker.”^[7]
• ✓Ask before you hang anything. New Jersey protects renters and HOA residents who install one, Colorado voids HOA bans from January, and Vermont asks tenants to give the landlord 10 days’ notice. Elsewhere your lease or condo board still has a say, so get a yes in writing.

You don't need a law to put solar on a balcony. You need one to connect solar to your home's wiring. Panels that charge a portable power station never touch the wiring: you plug the fridge, the router or the laptop into the station instead. That is legal in all 50 states. It keeps running in a blackout, which a plug-in kit without a battery does not. And you can take it with you when you move.

The trade-off is money and effort. You only save what you move onto the station by hand, and bought for the bill alone, a portable kit takes many years to pay back. Bought for the blackout, the panels are what keep the battery topped up when the grid can't. Our tools size both halves for your home and your state.

• New York. The SUNNY Act passed the Senate 62–0 in April and the Assembly in May, but as of October 4 it had not yet been delivered to the governor. It would take effect 90 days after signing.^[3]
• The utilities. PG&E lobbied against California’s bill, citing safety and the risk that customers without panels end up paying more to maintain the grid, and says implementation details still need to be worked through.^[9]
• January 1. California, Virginia and New Hampshire switch on together. The question is who ships certified kits to California first. EcoFlow’s product page still limits plug-and-play installation of its STREAM system to Utah.^[12]
• The electrical code. The 2026 National Electrical Code does not recognize plug-in solar modules, and the next edition is 2029; New Jersey’s law already points to it. Until then, local inspectors and UL 3700’s special plug are where the friction will be.^[8]
• The 2027 sessions. Bills that did not pass this year in states such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oregon and Washington can come back in January. Massachusetts still has to reconcile its House and Senate versions.^[4]
• A US bridge for power stations. In Europe, EcoFlow’s PowerStream and BLUETTI’s Balco Transfer Hub let an ordinary power station feed a wall outlet legally. Nothing like that is sold in the US. EcoFlow says its US STREAM Microinverter works only with STREAM Ultra.^[13]

Sun: NASA POWER Climatology API vv2.10.0, parameter SI_TILTED_AVG_VERTICAL for the railing and SI_TILTED_AVG_LATITUDE for the tilted panel, 20-year Meteorological and Solar Monthly & Annual Climatologies (January 2001 - December 2020), at each state's 2020 Census centre of population.^[21] Electricity prices: U.S. EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B, residential, year-to-date through june 2026.^[22] Losses: NREL PVWatts' defaults (14.08% system losses, 96% inverter efficiency), so 83% of the sunlight figure reaches the outlet.^[23] A kit is 800 W of panels unless stated. Dollar figures assume the home uses 70% of what the kit makes as it makes it and is paid nothing for the rest. A tilted rooftop array would beat all of these figures. Shade, a deep overhang, or a railing facing east or west will fall short of them. The pictures in this story are illustrations we generated to show what these setups look like; none shows a real home or person, and the one product shown by name is drawn from our own photographs of it.

1. [1]pv magazine USA (Ben Zientara), “Newsom signs California plug-in solar bill, establishing the nation’s largest balcony solar market”, October 1, 2026.
2. [2]Utah Legislature, “HB 340, Solar Power Amendments (enrolled)”, 2025.
3. [3]New York State Senate, “S8512C, the SUNNY Act”, read October 4, 2026.
4. [4]Bright Saver (advocacy group), “Plug-in Solar Legislation Tracker”, read October 4, 2026.
5. [5]UL Solutions, “UL Solutions debuts testing and certification framework for safer plug-in solar across the United States”, January 8, 2026.
6. [6]UL Solutions (Ken Boyce), testimony to the Vermont House Energy committee on S.202, “Follow-up testimony”, April 14, 2026.
7. [7]UL Solutions, “Safety considerations for plug-in photovoltaic (PIPV) systems”.
8. [8]UL Solutions, The Code Authority, “Coordination between model codes and standards”.
9. [9]Los Angeles Times (Blanca Begert), “Want solar but don’t own a roof? California just legalized plug-in panels, no permission required”, September 30, 2026.
10. [10]Engadget (Steve Dent), “Balcony solar installations will soon be legal in America’s most populous state”, October 2, 2026.
11. [11]Electrek, “First UL 3700 balcony solar microinverter (Hoymiles)”, July 20, 2026.
12. [12]EcoFlow, “STREAM Ultra product page”, read October 4, 2026.
13. [13]EcoFlow, “STREAM Microinverter product page and FAQ”, read October 4, 2026.
14. [14]EcoFlow, “How to integrate a power station into home backup”, read October 4, 2026.
15. [15]legislation.gov.uk, “Statutory Instrument 2026/848 (plug-in solar)”, in force August 27, 2026.
16. [16]UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, “Plug-in solar consultation: analytical annex”, June 2026.
17. [17]Verbraucherzentrale, “Steckersolar: Solarstrom vom Balkon direkt in die Steckdose”, July 24, 2026.
18. [18]Verbraucherzentrale, “Gesetze und Normen für Steckersolar”, March 6, 2026.
19. [19]Bundesnetzagentur, “Press release on 2025 renewable additions”, January 8, 2026.
20. [20]European Commission JRC, “PVGIS 5.3, Berlin, 1 kWp, 14% losses (our queries by orientation)”, run October 4, 2026.
21. [21]NASA Langley, “POWER climatology API (SI_TILTED_AVG_VERTICAL, SI_TILTED_AVG_LATITUDE)”, 2001–2020 means.
22. [22]U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B”, year to date through June 2026.
23. [23]NREL, “PVWatts Calculator default losses”.