The California state Assembly has passed SB 868, known as the Plug and Play Solar Act. Pending Senate concurrence in amendments made to the bill by the Assembly, California is one step away from passing its highly-anticipated plug-in solar legislation.
The California state Assembly has voted to pass Senate Bill 868, a bill that would allow the state’s residents to use portable solar generation devices with up to 1,200 W of output that plug into an electrical receptacle in a home or apartment.
The bill requires such devices to be used with the intent to offset the customer’s onsite electricity consumption and meet the standards of the most recent version of the National Electrical Code and the California Electrical Code. It also requires the systems to be certified by Underwriters Laboratories or an equivalent nationally recognized testing laboratory.
SB 868 would exempt users of these devices from requirements to file interconnection agreements with their local utility or to obtain the utility’s permission to use such devices, but it does allow a utility to require that customers notify it of their intent to use a plug-in solar device.
Notably, the text of SB 868 has been amended several times since the bill was introduced, adding language that removes as of January 1, 2030 the interconnection exemption and the rights of users to install the devices without utility permission.
