Everyone to Your Balcony!

By now, most of us know about solar energy. Most of us live in states that have at least some solar energy production, in varying degrees, and a little under 10% of homeowners have installed their own solar panels. Still, though, many communities don’t want solar farms, and installing residential solar panels is expensive and requires permits and expert installation.

Fortunately, balcony solar is coming.

Talk about DIY - hello, balcony solar. Credit: Microsoft Designer

It seems like people have never thought about electricity as much as we have lately. Prices are skyrocketing, with no end in sight, especially with the plethora of energy-thirsty data centers being built. President Trump has steadfastly criticized, and tried to halt, most kinds of alternative energy that might help mitigate cost increases.

Despite the President’s opposition to alternative energy, last month solar overtook coal for electricity production for the first time, although that’s as much about coal’s portion dropping as solar’s rising – and both lag nuclear and, especially, natural gas. The U.S. solar industry is still growing, adding 7.8 gigawatts direct current in Q1 2026, but at declining rates, in part due to the expiration of the 30% tax credit for residential clean energy.

Balcony solar doesn’t need solar farms. Balcony solar doesn’t need big, expensive rooftop panels. Done right, balcony solar doesn’t need regulatory approval or expert installation. Just plug it in on your balcony or deck, and – voila! -- you’re generating your own electricity.

Sounds too good to be true? Tell that to the over one million homes in Germany already using them, at a cost of as low as $200. The U.S., units can be had for as little as $400.

Now, don’t get overly excited. They won’t power your whole house, only supplying an estimated 10-25% of your electricity. They’re not a backup generator. Unlike many rooftop panels, they don’t typically feed into the electric grid (which then gives you a credit on your bill); they instead just reduce the amount of electricity you draw from the grid. Proponents claim they pay off in just a few years, the time depending largely on how expensive electricity is in your area.

Currently, though, they’re not legal in most states, as laws and regulations generally don’t distinguish them from larger units. Plug-In Solar says there are 30 states with such legislation in 2026: 5 have passed, 5 have failed, 11 have stalled, and the rest are in other stages. Utah was the first state to pass enabling legislation, in 2025, with Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and Virginia joining it this year, while Georgia, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming have rejected them.

State of balcony solar legislation. Credit: Plug-In Solar USA

Things are not quite as simple as proponents maintain, according to Casey Crownhart, writing in MIT Technology Review. Joseph Bablo, manager of principal engineering, energy, and industrial automation at UL Solutions told him there are three main concerns: overloading the house’s electrical circuit, potential for an outlet’s ground fault circuit interruption (GFIC) to fail if current is going back in, and the risk of power continuing to run if the plug is disconnected.

UL Solutions is working on a framework to address those, which would likely include a special outlet that an electrician would have to install. “I know they want to say ‘No electrician, no permits’—we’re not there,” according to Mr. Bablo.

Tell that to all those Germans.

Raymond Ward, the Utah (Republican) state representative whose bill allowing them passed in Utah, made the point: “You look over there and say, ​‘Well, that’s working,’ So what is it that stops us from having it here?” Note, though: even the Utah law still requires compliance with the National Electrical Code and a product safety standard from Underwriters Laboratories, neither of which is currently available.

So there is still work to be done. In Germany it took “relentless individuals” to make the necessary changes, according to Christian Ofenheusle, the founder of EmpowerSource, a Berlin-based company that promotes balcony solar. We’re going to need some of those too.

Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in praise of balcony solar: The Tiny Solar Panel That Could Change America. He recognizes that they won’t replace the current grid and that there “are still some technical questions to resolve,” but I like his vision: “It will be bought off-the-shelf like a consumer product, not sold by a team, like a swimming pool; it can be installed by just about anyone, with no special training; and it requires minimal approval.”

His vision goes further than just the direct impacts:

But if I can dream for a second, I hope balcony solar’s charisma and low cost help us imagine the energy-abundant future we are so close to achieving. Americans and our government have a tendency to treat the current energy system, and the current set of technologies that enliven it, as finished and fixed. In reality, they are always changing. 

Plug-in solar demonstrates one version of the coming changes: With its small size, it makes balcony and backyard power production possible. But it’s only one messenger of many from that new world. As batteries continue to develop, larger and larger amounts of energy will be stored at ever-smaller sizes and scales, and that will enable innovations and technologies we cannot yet imagine — technologies that will change our world as much as the sextant, the bicycle or the jet engine. 

That’s a vision we should all buy into.

Indeed, balcony solar is already inspiring people to take other actions to help fulfill that kind of vision. "They are a gateway to other measures such as larger photovoltaic systems or the purchase of an electric car or a heat pump," says Christoph Kost, head of energy systems analysis at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, a German research organization. 

As Mr. Meyer says: “Balcony solar is a small way that apartment- and condo-dwelling Americans can take ownership of their energy choices and cut down their pollution on the margins.”

Balcony solar won’t solve all of our issues with electricity, but it can help mitigate rising costs and perhaps, just perhaps, point us in the new directions Mr. Meyer is hoping for.