On Wednesday, July 22, SACE hosted a webinar discussing the recently released white paper, Disproportionate Regulation of Residential Plug-in Solar, which examines how residential plug-in solar — an accessible, affordable, and safe technology — faces heavier regulation than more dangerous portable diesel or gas generators.
We were joined by white paper authors Amanda Arthur, SACE Distributed Energy Manager, and Dr. Stephen A. Smith, SACE Executive Director, alongside Stephan Scherer, CEO and co-founder of CraftStrom Solar, the leading supplier of certified direct-to-consumer plug-in solar and battery solutions. The webinar featured an introduction to plug-in solar followed by white paper highlights with an emphasis on safety, including:
- Support for plug-in solar is booming: 35 states and Washington, D.C. have introduced plug-in solar legislation and nine states have passed legislation as of June 1, 2026.
- Interconnection requirements are the primary barrier to plug-in solar deployment in the U.S., not technical safety limitations.
- No lineworker has ever been killed or injured by backfeed from a grid-tied plug-in solar system; documented lineworker fatalities are exclusively caused by portable gas/diesel generators.
- The annual probability of lineworker electric shock from plug-in solar islanding is less than one in one billion per year, yet regulations of the technology are disproportionately high.
