Power surge: law changes could soon bring balcony solar to millions across US, Tweaks to state laws mean many Americans will be able to benefit from small, simple plug-in solar panels by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Nov 30, 2025
Acquiring solar panels at home can be an expensive hassle for people in the US. But small, simple, plug-in solar panels for use on balconies are soon to become available for millions of Americans, with advocates hoping the technology will quickly go mainstream.
Earlier this year, Utah became the first state in the country to pass legislation allowing people to purchase and install small, portable solar panels that plug into a standard wall socket.
When attached outside to the balcony or patio of a dwelling, such panels can provide enough power for residents to run free of charge, home appliances such as fridges, dishwashers, washing machines and wi-fi without spending money on electricity from the grid.
With idiots in our gov’ts giving carte blanche access to water to AI, data centres, oil gas, tarsands, coal and frac, and allowing them to render it too toxic for use by living beings when they’re done with it, and freely giving as much energy/electricity as they demand, ordinary apartment, condo, house dwellers won’t be able to afford soaring prices, if there even is any electricity to be had. Plug-in solar may save ordinary households from the AI invasion’s many harms
Balcony solar panels are now widespread in countries such as Germany – where more than 1m homes have them – but have until now been stymied in the US by state regulations. This is set to change, with lawmakers in New York and Pennsylvania filing bills to join Utah in adopting permission for the panels, with Vermont, Maryland and New Hampshire set to follow suit soon.
“Plug-in solar is a powerful tool to deliver enhanced energy independence and affordability to millions of New Yorkers who are currently shut out of the solar economy,” said Liz Krueger, a New York state senator who has sponsored a bill to allow balcony solar.
Krueger said that her tweak to state law will be “a gamechanger for renters, low-income New Yorkers, and many others who can’t install rooftop solar”.
A further five states could join the rush in the next few months, according to Kevin Chou, executive director of Bright Saver, a non-profit that champions the adoption of balcony solar panels.
“There’s now so much interest in this,” said Chou. “The federal administration has been so negative to clean energy that people have thought ‘OK what can we do at the state level?’ and this has been one of those things.
“There’s real momentum behind this now. In states where electricity is more expensive, in particular, I think we will see market forces really carry this far.”
As with solar panels that are attached to a building’s roof, or arrayed in fields, balcony solar soaks up the sun, albeit on a smaller scale. It then feeds this clean energy, via an inverter, into the wall socket. The panels themselves are smaller than standard rooftop panels and can be zip-tied in place without professional installation.
They sell for the equivalent of about $300 in Germany, with more expensive versions for $1,500 and upwards, that include some battery storage that can continue to feed in solar power to the home once the sun has vanished for the day.
All of this power is sufficient to run most home appliances for free, although it isn’t enough for larger family homes that have substantial air conditioning units or require charging for an electric vehicle.
“If you’re a single person living at home it can power all of your needs, but not for a family of six,” said Chou. “This isn’t a silver bullet or anything, it could maybe knock 5% off emissions. But it is an easy thing to do, it’s convenient and it can save people money. At the moment, there aren’t many wins happening for the climate and this can be one.”
A major barrier to balcony solar, though, has been the regulatory system across states, which typically requires anyone who installs solar panels to strike an agreement with the local utility for the power they are feeding back to the grid.
The installation of panels also typically has to be done by contractors and is inspected. This regime, plus inconsistent federal and state incentives for solar, means that only about 7% of US homes have rooftop solar, far less than some other countries. In Australia, for example, more than one in three households have rooftop solar.
In Utah, state legislator Raymond Ward was intrigued after reading about balcony solar and realized a minor adjustment to the law would allow Utahns to purchase the technology. His legislation carved out an exemption from interconnection agreements for people generating 1.2 kilowatt of power or less.
“The state law said that if you put any power back on the grid, even one electron, you need a contract with the utility, which is just crazy,” said Ward, who is a Republican.
“No one opposed the change. I fully expect 10 other legislatures in 2026 will run a bill like this, and more and more people will become interested in this. It will definitely happen.”
The pro-fossil fuel Trump administration has sought to squash certain solar and wind projects, while some utilities in the US have made it difficult for residents to adopt solar due to fears it could cut into their profits.
TOXIC NEIGHBOURS: Amazon Data Center Linked to Cluster of Rare Cancers
“The historical precedent here is Flint, Michigan.”
By Joe Wilkins
Futurism | Nov 29, 2025
For the hundreds of communities who’ve been saddled with data centers in recent years, the bulky fixtures are sources of unbearable noise, soaring energy prices, and plenty of electrical fires.
Add another grim possibility to that list: debilitating rare cancers.
Reporting on the “data center boom” in the state of Oregon, Rolling Stone tells the story of Jim Doherty, a cattle rancher and former county commissioner of Morrow, in eastern Oregon.
Doherty’s story began when he noticed a rise in bizarre medical conditions among the county’s 45,000 residents, linked to toxins in the local water. Working with the county health office, the rancher-turned-official began a survey of 70 wells throughout his jurisdiction — 68 of which, his testing found, violated the federal limit for nitrates in drinking water.
Of the first 30 homes he visited, Doherty told RS that 25 residents had recently had miscarriages, while six had lost a kidney. “One man about 60 years old had his voice box taken out because of a cancer that only smokers get, but that guy hadn’t smoked a day of his life,” he told the publication.
But the spike in cancer-causing pollution wasn’t just the fault of local farms, as Doherty expected. It had its roots in a 10,000 square foot data center by the commerce giant Amazon, which first went online in Morrow County in 2011.
Basically, the allegations go like this: industrial megafarms operating in the area are responsible for churning out millions of gallons of wastewater, laden with nitrates from fertilizers. All that waste has to go somewhere, which is one way of saying it mostly ends up in the ground.
Amazon’s hulking data center, thirsty for water to cool its blazing hot computer chips, supercharged this process, adding millions of gallons of wastewater a year to the heavy volume of farm runoff, which Morrow County was already struggling to keep up with. Soon even the deepest reaches of the local aquifer were tainted, according to RS, as huge volumes of data center and agricultural wastewater saturated the water table.
This meant that the data center itself began taking on the toxic sludge as it drew on groundwater to cool its electronics. When it did, evaporation only further concentrated the wastewater, which occasionally contained nitrate levels eight times higher than Oregon’s safe limit. The super concentrated data center water then made its way back into the waste system, where it ostensibly piled up all over again.
In response to the allegations, Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski said that “our data centers draw water from the same supply as other community members; nitrates are not an additive we use in any of our processes, and the volume of water our facilities use and return represents only a very small fraction of the overall water system — not enough to have any meaningful impact on water quality.”
Morrow County residents, however, beg to differ.
“The historical precedent here is Flint, Michigan,” Kristin Ostrom, executive director of activist group Oregon Rural Action (ORA), told RS. “In part because of how slow the response to the crisis has been, and in part because of who’s affected. These are people who have no political or economic power, and very little knowledge of the risk.”
“How can you live with yourself knowing that the water you put in people’s houses is causing miscarriages or cancer, or God only knows how it stunts the growth of a kid?” area resident Kathy Mendoza told RS.
Mendoza, along with members ORA, told the outlet she’s suffering an excruciating joint and muscle condition brought about by exposure to nitrates.
“How could they do that? Then these people go out and show their faces in public,” she continued. “And they’re still making money with it, every time those deals get cut for new data centers.”
More on data centers: Meta’s $27 Billion Datacenter Is Wreaking Havoc on a Louisiana Town