Browse our guide on the best concerts, plays, galleries, and more to see this fall.
Life, Automated explores how AI and automation are reshaping everyday life through conversations with researchers, practitioners, artists, and other unexpected experts.
See TV Programming Manager Emma Casley’s recommendations from this month’s KQED 9, PLUS and Passport schedules.
Watch recordings of recent KQED Live events.
Support KQED by using your donor-advised fund to make a charitable gift.
Browse our guide on the best concerts, plays, galleries, and more to see this fall.
<em>Life, Automated</em> explores how AI and automation are reshaping everyday life through conversations with researchers, practitioners, artists, and other unexpected experts.
See TV Programming Manager Emma Casley’s recommendations from this month’s KQED 9, PLUS and Passport schedules.
Watch recordings of recent KQED Live events.
Support KQED by using your donor-advised fund to make a charitable gift.
California is transitioning to clean energy. KQED is reporting on what that means for you. What works? What doesn’t? How much does it cost? Help us find these answers and more by donating today.
Each winter, retired teacher Agnes Chan would prepare for her utility bills to skyrocket, and the draft in her hundred-year-old Berkeley home to chill her to the bone.
She’d tape long, thin pillows to the bottoms of her doors to stop airflow, ready her warmest belongings, and set her thermostat to 60.
“I would be so stingy with my usage that I would take one blanket, another blanket, a sleeping bag to sit in my room, which is no fun,” Chan said.
She upgraded her windows and doors to be double-paned years ago, but she worried that insulating her craftsman home could cause rot.
Living alone and on a fixed income, Chan would “make myself suffer,” she said.
Chan had long wanted to defray the costs of her bills, which would rise to almost $300 a month in the winter, by installing rooftop solar. But the price was prohibitive, in the tens of thousands of dollars.
So Chan turned to something else: plug-in solar.
Plug-in, or balcony, solar is a kit consisting of a few solar panels, an inverter and cables. The devices can be hung from balconies or windows, tented in a backyard or placed on a roof. Their small size generates enough electricity to offset just a portion of someone’s energy use, but can meaningfully decrease monthly bills. Systems already being sold in California range in price from $300 to $2,200, depending on size.
California lawmakers passed a bill to formally legalize plug-in solar, which previously existed in a legal gray area. That bill now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature.
If signed, it would take effect in January, and products will likely hit the California market in the spring, said Erik Mebust, communications director for Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author.
The policy would exempt plug-in solar devices that meet safety and technical standards from the costly registration process required for rooftop solar arrays. That exemption would sunset in 2030, and advocates of the technology are already gearing up for a fight to see that date extended or erased.
By then, plug-in solar products sold would be required to meet standards outlined by independent safety organizations like Underwriters Laboratories. For now, any product already on the market can continue to be sold, but utilities say customers must register them.
Given California’s huge market, sunny weather and high electricity costs, supporters of the technology believe it will take off in the state in the coming years. Many of those who jumped on the plug-in solar bandwagon early have been happy with their purchases, while others offer some cautionary words about a market in its infancy.
Chan, for one, is very pleased with her system.
She purchased her kit through the plug-in solar nonprofit Bright Saver. It consists of two panels, an inverter, and cables that plug right into her existing 120-volt outdoor outlet. All told, she paid $400. The Bright Saver team installed her panels for free, something they typically do not do, since Chan is in her 80s and asked for assistance. It took less than an hour.
“I am getting a lot of energy on a sunny day. And even on half-foggy days, I’m still getting some. So, I’m pretty happy with that,” Chan said.
What’s more, Chan shed her frugal approach and winter sleeping bag get-up. Now, she pads around her one-story home in normal clothes with an electric heater in tow, which she feels is a luxury. Her average monthly bill is down to $200, a price that reflects what she called “comfort and warmth.”
Chan’s panels are on top of the accessory dwelling unit in her backyard, and recently, she added a small backup battery. It’s a simple plug-in unit, a large metallic rectangle, about the size of two laptops stacked atop one another. Chan said her battery is fully charged each night, from the excess solar she does not use during the day. She estimated the battery then powers her fridge and internet for the next few hours.
Other early adopters have run into roadblocks.
Misha Rashkin lives in Hayward and had wanted solar for years. He thought plug-in solar would be a great option to avoid being the first in his homeowners association to forge the path for approval for rooftop solar.
“I have a balcony, and it seemed like the perfect fit for me,” Rashkin said.
Rashkin paid around $2,200 for what the manufacturer billed as a “plug-and-play solar” system, and sunk an additional $1,200 to install a new circuit and plug for it.
When it arrived, Rashkin attempted to put it together but was quickly overwhelmed, he said.
He enlisted a handyman’s help for about $600. Once installation was complete, and his panels were plugged in, Rashkin said he was unable to sync the system’s various parts since it is a smart technology.
“It’s just absolutely the opposite of what I need from a product that is called ‘plug and play,’” Rashkin said.
After several attempts to fix the issues with his system through replacement parts, Rashkin grew frustrated, packaged up the bulky panels and returned the product to the manufacturer, Craftstrom, who refunded the purchase.
Stephan Scherer, Craftstrom’s CEO and founder, said he understood the criticism about the system being a little less user-friendly than people expect. Germany was an early adopter of the technology, and he said people there can literally buy a system and plug it in. He said safety and code requirements in the U.S. necessitate some additional steps.
For Craftstrom’s product, that means installing a small black cube called a power meter in a customer’s breaker box. The meter prevents electricity from feeding back into the grid, ensures circuits don’t get overloaded with power and calibrates how much power the panels produce to what is needed in the home.
Scherer said a lot of his customers install all the components themselves, but, for those who don’t feel comfortable doing it, his team recommends hiring an electrician for the power meter.
“We are actually innovating and trying to figure out ways to make this even more plug and play,” Scherer said.
This is especially important as Scherer has noticed customers are shifting. Many of the early adopters were older people with more time on their hands, or people with engineering backgrounds. Now, customers are younger and less tech-savvy, Scherer said.
Balcony solar “is a young industry,” he continued. “We’re all learning, and we’re learning with our customers.”
Other Bay Area residents have had luck with the same company. Joe Tenenbaum installed four Craftstrom solar panels at his family’s Orinda home last year, and hopes to add a battery. He estimated they’re saving $60 to $70 on their monthly electricity bills.
The panels have also changed his family’s behavior around when they use their appliances. When it comes to laundry, he said, “I’m actually trying to use the electricity when the sun is out.”
Tenenbaum noted, agreeingly: “A lot of people have said this is a gateway drug. I definitely want more.”
Berkeley resident Matthew Milner was one of Bright Saver’s first customers in May 2025. He’d wanted rooftop solar, but the upfront costs were staggering.
“This allows us to dip our toe in a little bit without having a huge financial cost and see how it works for us,” Milner said in an interview last summer.
More than a year later, he said: “They’ve worked like a charm, no real complaints, no real issues.”
Milner hopes to add more solar panels to those angled against his backyard fence, and install a battery, too.
He said it’s not quite as simple as plug and play.
“It’s not that level yet, you have to have some basic understanding of electricity and everything else,” Milner said. “It’s not idiot-proof, let’s put it that way.”
