Plug-in Solar a Common-Sense Solution to Rising Energy Costs

Energy bills are rising and families are looking for any way they can control their bills. While this is a complicated problem with a number of causes, there is a simple, no-cost way for state governments across the country to provide relief: Allow people to use plug-in solar panels without expensive and unnecessary red tape.

With plug-in solar, you can go to your local hardware store, buy some panels, come home, plug them in, and start saving money right away. Or you could, if red-tape wasn’t standing in the way. 

Most states, including Pennsylvania, require these systems to follow the same complicated and expensive approval process that larger systems need.  As a result, the market for plug-in solar is basically nonexistent here in the United States. 

Plug-in solar is a simple idea that has already been shown to work somewhere else. The barrier is getting our own bureaucracy organized the way it needs to be so that we can have the same thing that has already been shown to work. We’re not plowing new ground. We’re just catching up.

That’s why we are excited Pennsylvania’s legislature is considering legislation to enable plug-in solar. We’re looking to join half-a-dozen other states like Utah, Virginia, and Maryland. 

Plug-in solar is passing in these states with bi-partisan support. It’s easy to understand why. 

If what is important to you is renewable energy and climate change being able to quickly and easily generate clean electricity, plug-in solar speaks to that. 

On the other side of the coin, maybe you want the government to get off your back and let you take care of your own problems in your own home, plug-in solar speaks to that as well.

Maybe you agree with both of these points. Regardless, by letting more people do something on their own where they’re producing a little bit of their own energy we are able to make a better energy system for everyone.

Joe Hogan is a state representative in Bucks County and Monica Cary is the Pennsylvania Program Director at national non-profit Solar United Neighbors.