Virginia has become the third state to allow consumers to place plug-and-play solar photovoltaic systems on their balconies, decks or yards to save money.

Plug-and-play solar panels (also known as plug-in solar panels) are portable, preconfigured and precertified grid-tied AC modules that can be plugged into an electrical outlet to produce solar electricity.

Utah, with its 2025 passage of HB 340, was the first state to allow the small, portable solar generation systems to be used without the approval of local utility companies. This April, Maine followed suit with the passage of LD 1730 and a month later, Virginia approved similar measures with the passage of HB 395.

If plug-and-play solar were to be legalized across the country, the potential U.S. market could reach $71.7 billion in sales of new systems that collectively would have more than 57 gigawatts, according to a study published last November in Renewable Energy by researchers at Michigan Technological University.

Such a mass deployment would generate more than 100,000 megawatt-hours per year, roughly four times the electricity generated from solar in the U.S. in 2015, according to the study. Moreover, plug-and-play solar would provide consumers roughly $13 billion a year in cost savings, which would be expected to increase by about 3% per year over the lifetime of the systems.

“Solar-generated electricity is less costly than grid electricity. If you can offset any grid purchases with your own solar, you save money,” said Joshua M. Pearce, a MTU adjunct professor and one of the study’s researchers.

But for widespread adoption to occur, one of two things needs to happen, Pearce said. The federal government could make plug-and-play solar legal throughout the entire country as many European countries have. For example, there are tens of thousands of balcony solar arrays in Germany alone, “safely saving Germans money every day.”

Alternatively, each state would need to clarify the rules and legalize it, he said, which appears to be the route the United States is on now. This is slower and less efficient, and it puts the nation at a strategic disadvantage to all the jurisdictions that have democratized power generation already.

“For example, China has a robust market for plug-and-play solar systems,” Pearce said. “Americans pay far more for electricity than the average person in China with a plug-in solar system. Americans can take some comfort in the fact that at least three states have joined the future, and that puts them ahead of Canada.”

While the systems are designed to make it easy for consumers to install on their own, they can choose instead to enlist the help of an electrical contractor to help them, particularly if they are elderly or disabled. But Pearce believes that the real opportunity for electrical contractors is to think of plug-and-play solar as a “gateway drug” to full residential and commercial solar. 

“Consumers will like the money savings with say, 400 watts to 1.2 kilowatts (kW), and they can afford to get started that way,” he said. “Then when they prove solar for themselves and start saving money, they will want to save more.”

Most houses can handle 5- to 10-kW solar panels for basic load, double that for adding heat pump heating or an electrical vehicle, Pearce wrote. Those larger systems are where electric contractors will be needed.

“Frankly, a smart electric contractor could start selling plug-and-play [solar] at modest markup to get people interested in solar and establish a relationship,” he said. “Then be there to help their clients when they are in a position to do it—like when a couple has a child and moves from an apartment with balcony solar to their first starter home with a full rooftop of panels.”

The other play for electrical contractors would be striking deals with apartment landlords to give their tenants discounts on plug-and-play solar, Pearce wrote. Then contractors can sell in bulk and establish relationships with landlords to install commercial-scale systems where electricity is included.

“I think plug-and-play solar is an issue that can bring everyone together—it is unquestionably good for your wallet,” he wrote. “It is generating domestic power literally in your backyard, but it also gives people a little more control over their lives and their budgets while also doing good by the environment.”