A neighborhood cat traipses alongside a tall wooden fence in Alex Giesey’s West Jordan backyard. It’s a big space, with garden beds, raspberry bushes and a wooden shed. And off to the side, the sun beats down on four solar panels stretched across the back of his two-car garage.
Giesey, who works in supply chain management, liked the idea of helping power his own house and electric cars.
"It's also cool just to be able to think that these panels are sitting in my backyard, and the sunlight has been hitting the concrete the whole time, doing nothing but heating it up, so now I can take advantage of that and power the house a little bit,” he said.
Rooftop solar can cost $20,000 or $30,000. He didn’t want to spring for that, so he was excited when Utah lawmakers made it easier for residents to set up their own smaller solar panels last year — becoming the first state to support it. Similar legislation recently passed both chambers in Virginia, and has been introduced in more than 25 other states.
Giesey picked up four panels, each about the size of an 85-inch TV, from local company Payoff Solar. Wires run from the panels into the garage, where they connect to a battery and microinverter that plugs into a wall outlet. Some of the energy goes straight to the house. The rest charges the battery for use after sundown.
The battery was the most expensive part, costing around $1,200, but it was worth it to Giesey to have some power at night or in an outage.
“Especially given the global circumstances right now with the oil and gas industry, it's really nice to know that I'm not completely dependent on that, and I can, you know, generate some of my own power in my backyard,” he said.
In all, the project cost him about $1,800, and he set it up in a few hours in January. So far, the panels saved him $20 after the remainder of January and all of February, according to a smartphone app connected to the battery. As the days get longer, he hopes the system can contribute more, and he’s constantly thinking about whether to add panels.
“I think it's just fun to be able to be my own little power station and do it myself,” he said.
Utah’s 2025 law that green-lit plug-in solar passed unanimously. The key is that systems meeting certain specifications do not require contracts with a utility company.
Republican Rep. Ray Ward, the bill’s sponsor, became interested in it after reading a New York Times article about how common balcony solar is in Germany.
“It was just very striking how easy it was for people to purchase them there, and then having no idea why I could not purchase one here,” he said in an interview after he spoke about solar at Weber State University’s Intermountain Sustainability Summit.
The panels themselves are the same as traditional ones. The difference is the inverter, which converts energy to go through a standard outlet. It also prevents electricity from flowing onto the grid when the power is out in a building — a key safety feature that utilities are arguing over. Safety company UL Solutions recently established a certification framework for plug-in solar. In the meantime, customers have cobbled together systems using parts that are UL-certified.
And Ward isn’t too concerned.
“The response to all the folks who say, ‘Well, this is just too dangerous to do this,’ I would say, ‘Well, we are six years in now in Germany, there are millions of these units installed, and it's worked out OK,” he said. “It has not burnt down things over there, so somehow we can figure it out here as well.’”
The lower cost compared to rooftop systems is a big reason why Ward thinks there’s a market for this.
“For 600 watts, plus the inverter, you can get that on EcoFlow for a little over $1,000,” Ward told conference attendees. “So that, instead of a second mortgage on your home, is a very nice Christmas present for your spouse.”
To Jennifer Eden with the nonprofit Utah Clean Energy, the price makes plug-in solar a relatively easy entry point.
“People can then move on to something bigger if they want, or not, and if it saves them some on their electricity bills, that's a benefit,” she said.
Every bit of electricity that doesn’t come from burning fuel is a plus, she said, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
“One of the really great things about solar is there is no fuel. It's not that it's a clean fuel. There is no fuel. It's just the sunshine,” she said.
She estimates a household can generate 15% to 30% of its electricity through a plug-in system with a battery — with apartment-dwellers at the upper end and electric vehicle owners on the lower.
It’s hard to say how long the average return on investment is for these systems because prices vary and buyers can piece together equipment from different companies. Right now, the payoff period is still long, maybe up to 20 years, Eden said.
But there’s hope that will change.
The pro-balcony solar nonprofit Bright Saver estimates that if five more states adopt laws like Utah’s, prices will drop far enough by 2028 that a plug-in solar system will pay for itself in four years.
“This has a huge potential if it goes well,” Eden said.
Early adopters are likely tinkerers like Alex Giesey, who considers himself pretty mechanically-inclined.
“But I don't think you have to be for this,” he said. “Especially, I'm sure, as it becomes more popular, there'll be more guides online to help people out.”
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
