The California state Assembly committee on utilities and energy has advanced plug-in solar bill SB 868 in a unanimous 18-0 vote. The bill previously advanced on unanimous votes in the Senate appropriations committee and the committee on Energy, Utilities, and Communications before being passed by the full Senate in mid May on a 35-1 vote, with the votes of four Senators not recorded.
The bill was introduced by state Senator Scott Wiener (D- San Francisco), who celebrated the recent win in posts across social media platforms. “SB 868 clears away the needless red tape that currently makes it infeasible for people to use this technology,” Wiener wrote, calling the latest advancement in the bill’s progress a “(b)ig win for lower utility bills & more clean energy.”
SB 868 will now head to the Assembly committee on Appropriations, which must vote to advance the bill prior to a full Assembly vote. 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.
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.
As of this writing, Governors in five other states — Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland and Virginia — have now signed plug-in solar bills into law. Lawmakers in three other states — New Hampshire, New York and Vermont — have passed bills their states’ Governors have yet to sign.
Despite not being the first plug-in solar bill in the nation, California’s bill might end up being the most important. As the country’s most populous state, with 44% of its population living in rented housing and located in areas with high-levels of solar irradiance, the potential addressable market for balcony solar equipment is likely larger than in any other state.
In addition to the large number of potential buyers, the state’s electricity prices are among the highest in the nation and California no longer offers solar net metering to residents served by its three large investor-owned utilities.
This means a solution like balcony solar, which under SB 868 would require no formal interconnection or metering agreement between owners and their utilities, could be highly attractive to Californians trying to reduce their energy bills.
Comments
Please login to comment
Thursday, July 9, 2026
11:00 am – 12:30 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, June 18, 2026
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
11:00 am – 12:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, June 11, 2026
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, June 1, 2026
5:30 pm – 6:30 pm CEST, Berlin, Madrid, Paris
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
6 am – 7:00 am CEST, Berlin
Friday, June 12, 2026
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
The new pv magazine Global May issue is now available!
Mountains to climb
Available in print and digital formats.
A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution.
Entries open in seven categories: Modules, Inverters, BoS, BESS, Manufacturing, Sustainability, Projects.
April 01 – August 31, 2026
pv magazine USA hosts its third multi-day virtual event on advancing U.S. solar and energy storage markets, covering financing, supply chains, and distributed energy’s role in grid resilience.
You have no items in your basket.
