Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: All right, good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us, and so good to see you all. Welcome back for the second year, episode two of the biennium. And I am excited to get started and get rolling on topics. There's a lot of things that I would love to get through this session, and I'm sure there are things that are on your radar that you would love to get through as well. So we are waiting for some photocopies, and so while we are doing that, I'd love to just start with what you all are thinking. What are you hoping for? What would be your priorities coming up this year? And we can go in any order. Happy to start or end.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Okay, in terms of future.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah, go ahead. I

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Member)]: think the thing that I'd like us to spend time on is health of our links. Not not not so much not that it doesn't matter. That's a lot. But, Shane, I didn't know about, like, or or in safe or smaller links and just really focusing on what's casually happened with the health of our links, which direction we'll be going, because I think it's probably the wrong direction. And one of the things that we should be thinking about to try to improve the situation because our our lakes, they're all over the place, are just gems for Vermont and getting breaks from about there. Yeah. With the help of the ecosystems and the makes them that another everything everything apart. Yeah. I think so. I've got I've more right. You know? I'm interested in Super.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: If we can go around.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: I think think that is

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: a priority for me as well, as Seth said.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: I'm really, I think, interested in starting to fully understand what the any federal implications of any of the legislation coming out of Washington means for

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: any of the programs that we have jurisdiction over. Great, thank you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And just as an FYI, we were hoping to have an update on exactly that tomorrow, but it turns out that people were not real. So I'm anticipating that we may cover some of that next week. That's the hope. That's good. Okay. That's great. I definitely want to give that update. I agree with Senator Beck and yes, Senator Bongartz, the lake's getting, I started having that conversation last year. So picking that up again and talking about it would be great. I know that there are several bills about energy policy that I'm really interested in. How can we make, yeah, energy and utilities more cost effective for the launchers while also reducing carbon emissions. So just trying to really dig into some creative ideas on how we can do that, whether it's self new solar or improved energy navigation or whatever it is, just making it easier for Vermonters to afford clean energy would be a great thing for us to work on. Great.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: So I've been working on some lakes in my district, the association and the conservation fund, things that they want to be there as it, know, is as far as the health of the lake, but also a much economic development of the. So Well I actually got some emails from people about Star Lake that, you know, are concerned the lake the lake in in Swallowford. That's basically government of America. And they nobody can do anything there because of some species of lily. So that's why I'm concerned about that. We don't want to do any harm, but we also wanna listen to constituents. So I'm speaking of listening to constituents, the biggest thing I've heard this summer for people is three in the road and how that's financially affecting everybody. Some things that we can possibly do. I've got going in this maybe a little bit out there, but it's at least starts the

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: conversation. Okay. Super. Thank you. Wow, it's kind of awesome that Lakes is on everyone's mind or it came up for everybody. So that is helpful for me to prioritize that, putting all the other things that were mentioned. I would also add, I'm very interested in what we can do about housing. I firmly believe that we do not need to compromise environmental protections in order to build housing. I think there are things that we can do to make our housing cheaper, build, faster to build. And so I'm looking for like, what those things? So I'm hoping to take a bill about that. And there's, I guess I would say more generally than lakes, I'm interested in water quality issues. We do want to revisit and get that salt bill through, see what needs to be done with that. And then some solid waste issues around plastic pollution, and I think there's going to be a tire EPR bill that may come to us from the house. I think there's some solid waste issues that are going to be really interesting in this session, as and much as we can also be working on energy stuff, I'm interested in that as well. I'm particularly interested also in the financing of that. And so there's a bill that came to us that was a little bit of a surprise about, it's a study on the green banks. I thought it was going go to finance, but it did not go to finance, it came here. So we might have thought that as well. So, okay, thank you everybody for sharing. And as your priorities either shift or change or things come up, please let me know. Would love to be getting through as much as we can in this session. And to that end, I did schedule us to talk about portable solar today, also known as balcony solar, also known as plug in solar. So we do have the legislative council with us to walk through this. I think we're waiting on some copies right now, but one possibility, because it is posted. Yeah. So it is available to the public. Oh my goodness, is this it? Okay, amazing. It's not on the website, you have whatever. Some legislatures. Yeah. So if you look up, I asked you all to see you on the legislatures. I was fighting until I did hand it up. Okay. So just by way of introducing this briefly, this idea came to my attention over the summer, and it's very, or I should say it's inspired by a bill that was passed in Utah. It had bipartisan support there. It was unanimously approved. That to me seemed like a good sign. And so our version is based off of Utah's, and it's very similar, though it definitely has some distinct aspects of it. The idea, just to say it out loud, or to explain it a little bit, in Europe it's very common to have a portable solar device, or balcony solar device, where you can go to your local department store, buy one of these, and it has a baked in inverter and a plug, so you can just bring it home, take it out of the box, and plug it right into your wall. This is technically legal in Vermont, though in order to do that, you would need to have an interconnection agreement with your distribution utility. And the goal here is to make this as simple and easy as possible for the customer. People do not want to have to go through interconnection agreements with their distribution utility, but I think that there are some things that the distribution utilities might want to have, but we'll

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: let them speak to further themselves on that.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And we went through multiple iterations of this bill, and don't want to get too deep into it. There's more to be said, but you know, as a way to allow people who don't have the authority to put solar on their roof, who don't have, know, maybe they're renters, maybe they have a condo, this is something that, a device they could just put out on their balcony out in a yard, and start generating electricity and lowering their electric bills right away. So I will turn it over to Leg Council to walk us through this.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Thanks. L. J. Cafferty, Office of Legislative Council. I'm here on S202, and I'm relating to portable solar energy generation devices. This is a pretty short bill, and I think Senator Watson summed it up pretty neatly. It's a pretty short, narrow bill. There is some electrical engineering jargon in here that you may want to talk to an actual expert about, not me. I'm going to tell you what a receptacle is because I had to learn what that was. And so I'm not an expert in the very technical aspect on how some of these things work, and you might want to

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: hear about the frozen ones.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: But to start, page one, section one, thirty BSA two zero one is amended to read. This is the definition section of chapter five of the PUC's statutes. So a new definition is being added. Number nine, portable solar energy generation device. It needs a movable photovoltaic generation device that has a maximum power output to the electric grid of not more than 1,200 watts. So I'm going to stop right there first. This is not the same way that other solar devices are described in other statutes, but there's particular issue around these. This is talking about the amount of power that these portable panels are putting back onto the grid. So you're capping here not more than 1,200 watts from this device coming back to

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: the grid. And so you want

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: to hear more about what that means. And this is the size limitation being 1,200 watts is fairly small. Most of the time when we're talking about panels in these builds, solar panels in these builds, talking about kilowatts, which is this nice scale up. 1.2 kilowatts and under.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes, go ahead. So is

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: this the direct current that needs to be converted to an inverting feature? Already, with

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: an electrical question I didn't answer. I

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: don't know. Does

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: it turn to read it backwards?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I look forward to hearing you hear I can tell you what the intent is. The intent is that it

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: is a 1,200 watts AC,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: and that if it is putting electricity back on the grid, that it could theoretically be. That is my understanding, willing to be wrong. That's the intent. There's so much technical language in this bill that I can't fully describe to you, so I'm sorry, but I'm sure you'll hear more about that. Yes.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Now on to page two. So still the definition of what these devices are.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's a device

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: that is designed to be connected to a building's electrical system via an electrical cord plugged into a receptacle. So receptacle is the slots that are put onto an electrical outlet so that the plug can be inserted. So an outlet is intended to primarily offset the offset part of the customer's electricity consumption, so it's for the customer's own use. Includes a feature that prevents the system from energizing the building's electrical system during a powder outage. This is a safety measure to prevent shock. It's certified by Underwriter Laboratories for an equivalent nationally recognized testing laboratory for use in The United States. And so this is common on all of the electric products that you use. There's the UL symbol denoting that it has been certified by Underwriters Laboratory, and is connected to a building that is connected to the electric grid. So this definition that you have in this bill is very similar to the language in the Utah bill. In section two, it's creating a new section in this chapter, section two fifty six, Portable Solar Energy Generation Devices. And so I'm on page two, line 12. The installation of a portable solar energy generation device shall not be required to comply with the requirements of Section two forty eight of this chapter, be required to obtain an interconnection agreement with an electric distribution of company. As Senator Watson already said, the construction of electric generation facilities broadly have to go through the two forty eight certificate of public good process. However, for our own consumption off the grid, you might not need to go through the two forty eight process. But if you were connecting to the grid, you would need an interconnection agreement, which is between customer and their electric distribution utility. So this is exempting these devices from a two forty eight CPG and needing to communicate and get an interconnection agreement with the utility. Subsection On before 09/10/2026, the Public Utility Commission, in consultation with the Division of Fire Safety and the Electric Distribution Companies, shall develop a simple notification form for customers who install portable solar energy devices, which shall, at a minimum, include name of customer and contact information, address of instalment, the customer's electric utility, and meter number. The forms will be available in an online version, on to page three, and a printable version. An electric distribution company may require customers to submit notification form to the company after installation of the device. Subsection C, an electric distribution company shall not require a customer using a portable solar energy generation device to Obtain the company's approval before installing or using the device Pay any fee or charge related to the device or Install any additional controls or equipment beyond what is integrated into the device. A portable solar energy generation device shall not be eligible for net metering. And finally, a portable solar energy device in a public building, as defined in 20 BSA Section 2,730, shall be used in a manner that complies with all applicable requirements of the most recent fire and building safety code adopted by the Division of Fire Safety. Public buildings are not single family residential units. They traditionally are buildings that are open to public. The definition is quite long, but if you're in a single family residence, that's not necessarily a public building unless it is being rented. So if you're in a public building, you need to comply with the fire code, and it is basic things like do not block an egress with the panels, make sure the cords are secured and not a tripping hazard in an egress, so things like that. Then finally, section three, the effective date is 07/01/2026.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes, and then I have another question. Actually, before we move on, if we can, one of the things that we talked about in the development of this bill was this question about whether or not a landlord could prevent somebody from putting one of these

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yes. Would you mind speaking to that? That's not here.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Sure. One of the versions of drafts did have something to address that, but if if that's okay.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Sure. Apologies if I don't think I have the site off the top of my head, but in 10.4, in chapter 117, there are protections for people to Towns cannot make it difficult in their bylaws to install renewable energy generation devices. HOAs have a similar provision.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Sorry, I apologize. But what

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: I can tell you is there is some language that establishes protections for the construction and installation of renewable energy devices at people's house broadly. The language of that does say onto a building structure.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: so you may actually want to consider if these things, if you want to potentially extend that. If, for example, they're going to be hung on fences or So yes, I think there are some protections in other areas of statutes that already apply to solar panels, other types of solar panels. But given that, as I have learned, how these panels work and where they go, you may want to broaden it slightly and I would be prepared

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: to Perfect, sounds great. Thank you. I just want to make sure to talk about that. So Mary? Yeah, my question was kind of along the same lines, just the term customer and what that specifically means if you're in the context of a renter who may not be the direct customer or a student who's living in a dorm or a group house of some kind, who may not be the direct customer, how that might work. And would those people be allowed to have them?

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: I haven't thought about plants. I think, so the way it is drafted right now, it has to be for personal use. And then the only other requirement is that potentially after someone has chosen to use this, the electric company can ask for notification. So if customer is too narrow, I think you could potentially go

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: with another word. I might have thought about people who have access to the building that aren't related to, you know. Yeah. I mean, renters are often, in some cases landlords pay the electricity, but then put it on their rent or are the actual, the landlord is the customer, but the tenants are paying for the electricity. The tenants would have potentially an incentive to want to use the balcony solar units. And then in the case of college students, I know they don't necessarily pay the utility bills directly, but I know that there are students in my district in particular who are interested in this bill and might want to know how they can participate. I wasn't sure how it might work for college students. Just a question That out seems like something worth addressing.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: You have big word, testimony there. I got a couple of questions from me, mostly things like you know, 1,200 watts and, you know, the gauge of the wire. Some of the some of the newer houses, the last housing move we had, they went to 14 gauge wire that is not gonna handle four 1,200 watts. Mhmm. So is there a device you know, is there something in the inverter that's gonna limit that? And what about the insurance companies? I mean, if it's a if it's your own personal home, second one, the lady would be concerned about it.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: All good questions. And I think that we, the people that we're going to hear from, I think will be hopefully well suited to answer questions.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Lot of electrical questions, I'm not going to torture you. I have one question, I think it's right up

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: your alley. Does this bill in any way control or restrict how many of these up to 1,200 watt solar generators have somebody in the person been out?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh yeah, it does not.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Does not, okay. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: this was something that we talked about to some degree, and that was in part the intent around that there was a limit for how much you could back feed into the grid. Does that make sense? Like, let's say you had two six hundred watt systems that you could have two of those and that just ultimately don't be back feeding more than 1,200.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Potential for no more than 1,200.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Again, was the intent because we're not trying to stir it like, if you should get an interconnection agreement, maybe you should do that. But I was talking with somebody else after this bill was already submitted that said multiple, so by putting this limitation of 1,200 watts in the definition, then you're just defining what it is, and that maybe that limitation of 1,200 watt battery actually needs to be outside of the definition of what it And maybe it belongs in both places, know, because we're trying to talk about like these are small systems.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: But even 1,200 watts, I mean, you're talking five panels. Mean, it's not like a red box. Mean, a pretty

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: It's bigger than a red box?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Member)]: It's bigger.

[Senator Scott Beck (Clerk)]: You're probably talking about five panels. That's the size of these things. It'll be to get to 1,200 watts. Yeah.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: So to be continued on that, because I think that's an important question.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: They Yeah. Would check this with Utah to see if they had any muscles around or any muscles we have with?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, I think we are gonna be taught yes. I think you will hear

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: from the advocates. One thing is I am not sure that the UL certification has been issued. So even though they passed, even though Utah passed this, they do also have the requirement that the underwriters laboratory case have certified it. And I don't think that has happened yet. So I don't know how much of a role they've actually had.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It's not It's not approved. I don't think so yet. We'll think there's more

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: about that. There's more to be

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: said about that and we're going to hear from Cora Stryker from BrightSaver soon, who may be able to speak more into that. But you're absolutely right. So, be continued. Thank you so much. Okay, and we still have half an hour. Then I don't know how long Mr. Dreager is going go. So, don't know if we'll get to you today.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: I'm sure you're part of it. I'm

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: ready. Okay, all right. All right, but we, if we're ready, also who's sharing the slides? Not you? Or

[Unidentified participant (slides/Zoom logistics)]: I don't have sorry, Ben. I really want to record. I don't record slides. I was only either. Doing I think inquiry share her slides.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: I can

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: share. Yes. I have permission to share. I'm happy to send them.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That would be that would be fabulous if you could do that.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Thank you.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yeah. Absolutely. Should I send them now or after?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: If it's fast, if you can send them now, and our committee assistant Jude is fabulously No, don't say that. Okay. Alright, whatever you get to us, I'll just do send it to us eventually.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Let me see, this link should be open. Let me make sure about that. So hi, everyone. Is it should I step in?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes, go ahead. Before we go, if we could just do a quick round of introductions for those of us who are in the room. Ruth, Senator Hardy has just stepped down and she'll be right back. Terry Williams, Brompton District. Anne Watson, Washington District.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Senator Hogartz from Bennington Center District.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Scott Beck, Caledonia Center District. Great, then go ahead.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Me? Hi everyone, is it me? Sorry, I'm Yes, having yes. Trouble Okay, okay. Good morning everyone, I'm Cora Stryker, I'm co founder of Bright Saver. We're the only nonprofit that is dedicated to making plug in solar ubiquitous in The United States. Actually, Senator Watson and I and my co founder, Kevin, we talked what was it in the spring? And I just have to say to your Senator's credit, I mean, Senator Watson just immediately understood the import of something so simple that can transform many people's lives. Thank you for everyone mentioning at the top the stakes here because we are talking about renters finally having access to solar students. These things are portable so you can literally hang it outside your college dorm window and take

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: it with you. So

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Ben and I were talking, I have a short presentation just on what this thing is, if that would be helpful. And also, I would be happy to comment on UL because they have released their outline of investigation for the new certification it's 3,700, and that's a certification for the system end to end. So, so would it be helpful for me to do sort of a brief what this is, what the potential is, presentation? That's what I just shared in the chat or would that or is that Yes.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And if you just a little bit better about what who BrightSager is, what what And we're

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: we're pretty new nonprofit. We started exactly a year ago, 01/05/2025. And we really started with this vision. We saw what was happening in Germany, how renters, folks in their equivalent of HOAs were were driving this movement to get these small solar panels on their property. Usually, often they're balconies, you know, you know, those beautiful European buildings with with, you know, 10 stories of balcony apartments. And we thought to ourselves, wait, why isn't this happening here? And and it's been a journey as we have begun to answer that question. And we've come really far in the last year and there's many state champions. I mean, Senator Watson, you were, I think the second legislator to say yes, let's do this. But we have quite a few, almost twenty, nineteen at last count, bills that are going to be introduced or have already been introduced across states. So that's pretty extraordinary. We're almost at half of The United States Of America is thinking about doing this. And we're super excited and we're here to sort of answer technical questions. That's what we do. Should I just go in? That a Yes,

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: can you share your screen for the presentation?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Absolutely, let me do that. Where am I? Here we go.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Here, this should be it.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Do we see this and I'm kind of going backwards here, but actually maybe that makes sense. So this is from our white paper. This is what we project will happen once a critical mass of states passes enabling legislation such as has been proposed in Vermont. And you'll just see what we're really talking about is a dramatic price reduction in the cost of these systems to the consumer. So currently, these systems that are available in all 50 states are around $3 a watt, that's roughly comparable to rooftop nationwide. But you'll see pretty quickly as soon as enabling legislation like Utah is passed, we cut that in half approximately, and it can be self installed, you don't need an electrician. And then quickly within a year or two of enabling legislation being passed in a handful of states, We estimate around 5, we might actually get there this year, I don't want to jinx it, but we might, the price will drop even further to component levels. This, this is because the actual equipment is dirt cheap. What's really expensive in this country are what we call soft costs. Many of you are familiar with this, the cost of labor, installation, permitting, etc. And I know in Vermont, have a fast track. So I would suspect that that is a bit lower than it is in Vermont. But nationwide, it's 40 to 65% of the cost of rooftop solar. And I do want to say at the top, we really love rooftop solar. We are not here to denigrate rooftop solar. We're here to to provide another option for people who just can't do can't install rooftop solar for a number of reasons. So this is what they are. This is me on my balcony. These are small small systems. They can be put just about anywhere on a balcony and a patio, and they're accessible to an entirely different group of people. As Senator Watson talked about, they feed power directly into your your home's wiring. So, so they're very simple systems, we have panel, we have inverter, plug it into a standard outlet. And anything you're running on your electricity will run off of this electricity that's generated by the panels first. They can be coupled with a battery. I'll get to that in a second. And they are for traditionally grid connected homes, meaning these are not off grid systems. The off grid systems like this do exist, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about folks who live in typical suburban urban, rural areas, and are connected to the grid. This is what they look like. This is actually so much. So my nonprofit Brett Sabre, we have piloted these in California, as well as a number of other states, at least for the left hand one, the balcony setup. So these are very simple, they can be put in many different places, they can be oriented toward the sun, you'll see that on the backyard setup, you also can do a vertical orientation. So so they're very versatile, they're accessible, and we really see them as an on ramp to to other solar adoption. These are low wattage. So we don't we're really climate people, we know you are too. We don't see this as the solution to the climate change problem. We see this as an on ramp. We see this as a way to empower people who have been shut out of adoption of rooftop solar across the board. And I will say that, you know, when we started this thing, we were expecting a little pushback animosity from the traditional rooftop solar industry. It's been the opposite. I mean, you know, there's really been this welcoming attitude of Oh, yeah, like, this is an entirely different group of people, we're not competitive. We love rooftop, we love community solar. That has to be part of the puzzle, but we think this does too. So again, we estimate around 70% of residents in The United States cannot get rooftop solar for a number of reasons. Renters, their roofs are bad. I'll get next to this gentleman in the middle Terry, he is a senior on a fixed income, he want wanted rooftop solar but he has a bad roof and when you factor in the cost of replacing your roof and then getting rooftop solar, we're talking about tens of thousands dollars that he'd simply didn't have on a fixed income. So he was really excited about this solution, he was one of our first adopters. On the left, you'll see Tiffany, she's a new mom, very similar, wanted rooftop solar, just couldn't afford it. And then on the right, you'll see Sean, he's a renter, he tried to convince his landlord to get rooftop solar, his landlord said no. So this was an option that he was super excited about to offset in his case, really high electricity bills from air conditioning in the summer. So what is it and we've kind of talked about this a little bit. I mean, this these are the I guess what we call the simple or dumb systems that are that are in Germany and now Utah, you know, you really, there's not too much complexity, we have panel, we have, inverter plugging into a standard outlet, you'll see here on the left a battery that is an option, we also do see models with AC coupled batteries on the right hand side, this is just the DC side battery is the more common orientation, at least for now, but that may change. So and then this is where we get to the back feeding thing that that senator Watson was talking about. So so you use what's what's, what you're running off of your electricity, your refrigerator, maybe

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: your

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: air conditioning, maybe your heat, if you have a heat pump, and then anything left over is fed back to the grid. And that's where that threshold, that 1,200 watt threshold, really comes into play because we certainly don't want to create any kind of grid instability issues. We actually have a report, I think I should send this also as a follow-up. Senator Watson, we have we have a report from Bill Brooks, who's a renowned expert in the field. He was actually on the committee of the National Electric Code rulemaking body. And he has done an analysis showing that in every region in The United States, the Northeast, even if we had something astronomical, like 25% of of US residents in these regions had one of these at 1,200 watts, you'd see no net export to the grid on an hourly basis. Why is that important? That's important because if you do see major swings in output, and if utilities, for instance, don't have great insight into where this solar is coming online on the grid, we could be looking at grid instability issues. That's why the basis of, for instance, why rooftop solar does need an interconnection agreement, you know, utilities need insight into what sort of electricity is coming online through distributed energy resources. The this analysis we have shows that these are such de minimis small amounts of electricity that that we really don't need to worry about that. And that's important for a couple of reasons. I mean, we want the utilities to be part of this negotiation. They were in Utah when we worked on the legislation there. I know Senator Watson has great relationships with utilities in Vermont. We don't want to come at them with our fist raised saying, know, like you have to accept this. We want them to understand that this really isn't a safety issue for the grid or line workers, by the way, that that section in your proposed bill mandating automatic shut off within in some in some states, we specify within five hundred milliseconds of disconnection of the grid protects line workers. We don't have outlanding. We don't have electricity being sent back, to the grid if the if the grid goes down and line workers are working on it. So again, this is what we're going for. This is what we hope is in Vermont later this year. Currently, this is the setup that is available in all 50 states. And I just want to preface this by saying that this technically violates most PUC recommendations. So even for this system that sends nothing back to the grid, no electricity back to the grid, These are technically required to go through an interconnection agreement, which we believe is patently ridiculous for these tiny systems. So this is how it works, so you'll see on the left it's exactly the same, that the change comes on the right, where we have an extra piece of hardware that, that essentially is back feet prevention. So let's say you go to lunch, you're not using much electricity, but the sun is still shining, you will produce that excess electricity and let's say you even have a battery and your battery is full, whatever is left over will be prevented from going back to the grid. What does this do? This essentially makes these systems invisible to the utilities, so people in all 50 states are getting these systems as we speak. And you know, we see it as a step in the right direction, but it really can't be the full story because here's the problem, This back feet prevention hardware, the cost plus the cost of the electrician just about doubles the cost everywhere in the country. So it makes it less accessible. And it also makes it so it can't be self installed. You have to call in that professional electrician. So, you know, we we know there are products that do this. We are a nonprofit. We're not here to sort of denigrate any product, but we really feel that this is not the, the end of the story to get to that, you know, millions of of households having having access to this kind of solar. So again, this is why we don't have it, I think we've talked about this, we need to update the interconnection regulations so that these small systems are not bound to the same standard as rooftop systems five to 20 times as large. And as Senator Watson alluded to, we have a model, we have Raymond Ward, a state, a Republican in the state of Utah, who we worked with to craft a very simple bill, simpler actually than the draft you have in Vermont, although I think your draft is superior, actually, in a couple ways. So what he did is he put together with our advice this really simple bill that essentially exempts these systems from traditional interconnection and also net metering as it's in your bill as well. And what that did is immediately it dropped the cost of the system by about 50%, and it made it accessible. People literally in Utah order these online, go to their local hardware store, buy the pieces, buy the inverter separately, and then set it up in their backyard. They don't need to to have a professional installation at all. So that's what we're going for. And I'll say, I mean, it's really quite extraordinary, Senator Watson, were at the very beginning of the wave, but in case you haven't been following this, we have 10 states that have already announced that they are going to do this. So in addition to Vermont, we're looking at New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Maine, I'm actually going to a Maine hearing, right after this one, Indiana and Missouri, these are the ones that have already introduced or announced their intention to introduce. I'll tell you, we're kind of the center of, what's happening nationally. And I'll tell you, we have at least eight more legislators that are committed that are drafting bills as we speak. So again, we think we're gonna see close to 20, if not more than 20 of these bills moving in 2026. And another three I can think of off the top of my head in '27 since since that's the next cycle. So we're super excited about this. You know, Senator Watson, you already mentioned some of the reasons this is exciting. It's energy affordability for people who have no other solar options, of course, climate, it's clean energy, it's energy independence, it's, don't tell me what to do in my backyard. We just think it's simple and powerful. And, I just want to close by by showing what this will do. So this, as you see, is the historical cost per watt of German balcony solar systems. And, this decline really was spurred by legislative action. And I think that's, you know, the power that you all have in your hands is that, oh, and this is the increase in adoption. So you see as the cost goes down, the adoption increases, by the way, is registered units, and that's at about a million. We hear from our counterparts, their estimates that put that much higher, closer to 4,000,000, if not above. Since some folks don't register their units, they just buy it and plug it in. And, you know, this is from our white paper, which I invite everyone to take a look at. I'm happy to send you, send this group a copy, or you can get it on our website. But but, you know, we really are looking at precipitous declines and payback periods, which will drive mass adoption. And one thing we're really excited about is that this doesn't require any public funds, no subsidies. This is entirely consumer driven, because it really lowers the cost for the consumer to the cost of the component. And we think that is key. We think we're at a tipping point with clean energy. We think it is or will be soon better, faster, cheaper. And we just have to get the right regulatory framework in place to permit that. And as I started, I mean, this really is what will happen. As soon as we get enough states to open up, their markets, we talked to all the major manufacturers, they tell us, hey, we are watching very closely, but they need to see more states besides Utah, where they can fall. So, so this is the power you all have in your hands up. I am happy to talk about UL 3,700, has been released, but maybe I'll pause here first for questions.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: That'd great. I'm sure we have some. Yes, go ahead. It's the earliest.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for that presentation. Great. The question is, will this work as a standalone system if you're off the grid?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yes it does, now those exist, those have been around for a long time, so if you want to go camping and get one of these, you can. Or if you live off the grid, you can get one of these. We're talking though about specifically grid tied systems, meaning households that need to draw some from the grid in the best case scenario, these systems offset. Well, it's interesting, six months ago, would have said 15 to 20%, we actually have some analysis coming out showing it's quite a bit higher than that in the twenties and in some cases the thirties, percent of of electricity consumption in a household. So in in no circumstance will this cover your entire electricity load. So they really can't be off grid in this form.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Well, I'm just thinking about you got an all building like a horse shed or place where you got animals and you need to keep keep the water just blank and freezing. Is this looking like a standard battery storage system?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yes, they can be coupled with batteries. Now they're sort of the simple system I showed and some of these systems come with batteries, some all of them though you can buy a battery and attach it. Yeah, I mean that resilience we're talking about is very much why we think these are crucial. We think once folks have these in large enough numbers, there will be this resilience when coupled with a battery. And yeah, I mean it's a health issue for a lot of folks, the medically vulnerable. And yeah, we'll keep that stuff running within the household. So don't forget, we have that automatic shutoff feature for safety for line workers. So if the grid fully goes down, we do need to disconnect from the grid, but we already have models where you can continue to use that solar energy within the households like you're talking about.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Other questions? Some of my own. So love that you've got the per kilowatt or per watt price projections out there, which of course affects the potential payback for purchasing one of these. So right now the payback period would be a little different than perhaps after we would pass some kind of an England legislation. So I was just wondering what your estimated payback period would be for one of these devices now and then sort of projected out into the future.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yeah, I have that. I have all the projections state by state. Can I send that as a follow-up? Yeah, it's in the hundreds and you know, overall, I would say four to five years payback is what we're looking at. Generally now, this actually is related to UL 3,700, because that changes bends the timeline a little bit, and I'm happy to talk about that. I think actually we should, while there's still an opportunity to amend this law, but maybe we're not ready for that.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, no, if you have suggestions, suggestions are very much welcome. Yeah. Yeah. So if you have any red line version that you want to send us, that would be very helpful. I'm wondering if you can just because UL is on the Rutland District. Can you I apologize. I don't know what UL 3,700 is. Is that? Yeah,

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: it's brand new. So let me switch over. Can you see this now? Yes. You can see this now. Okay. So this is brand new. It came out when most of us were planning for some time off. And it really, ultimately, it doesn't change the vision, but in the short term, it changes, I guess the tactics that we need to have to make this a ubiquitous, widely available technology. And, you know, I think that the bottom line is that what UL 3,700 does, the good side of what it does, is it really has turned over every stone in terms of safety, household level safety and line worker safety. And we are quite close with a number of folks who have been part of these rulemaking bodies and they tell us this is sort of a starting place. And UL has been very conservative in their starting place. And in fact, as of today, if there was a UL 3,700 certified plug in solar system, which there isn't, we believe from our conversations with manufacturers that will come out by the end of the year, if not the middle of the year. It must be installed by a professional if it is UL 3,700 compliant. Now, interestingly, I I have read drafts of bills that are gonna be introduced this year that specifically call out UL seventeen forty one as the safety standard. Why is that important? It's important because we already have UL seventeen forty one standards, we already have products that meet that standard. Why isn't that enough? Some people think it is. What what we've need to bear in mind is that UL seventeen forty one is not a certification for the system end to end, it's only for the inverter. So, so there is an argument to be made and I expect that to come in the hearing, I'll appear at later this week that has this language, that that when we're talking about coupling different pieces, we do have different safety concerns. And that's really what you all was thinking about when they put together their their guidance for 3700. And and what I'm sharing now is a bit of a technical document. Our next step, we're leading a national coalition of a number of allies with Solar, Solar United Neighbors. We're gonna come up with a fact for UL 3700 pretty soon, hopefully by the end of this week. But this is the technical document and what we recommend is an addendum to law to preserve self installation under a threshold of three ninety one watts. Now why that number? That number because Europe, particularly Germany, has a decade of experience installing 800 watt systems. However, as you know, Europe is on a different voltage system. They're on two thirty volts, we're on 120. That's why you need an adapter when you go to Berlin. So, we need to adjust that threshold to have the same current flow through the system. Current is what determines heat. So so what we need is we need thermal parity between those 800 watt systems with quite a bit of with with an ex a very pristine safety record over ten years with our our system here. We still think the 1,200 watt threshold is correct because what it does is any system above three ninety one watts can be installed by a professional electrician without having to go through the interconnection rigmarole. For tiny systems under three ninety one watts, we recommend the following language should be added to bills.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: It

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: is essentially what it says is that you, if you have a tiny system under three ninety one watts, you do not, you're exempt from any certification that requires you to make a permanent alteration to the electrical system of the house. Why is that important? That's important because currently UL 3,700 says you do need to alter the electrical system to essentially install non standard outlets. I'm covering a lot of ground, I I this should be in my presentation, but this is so new. It's not yet. So so it we see it as really important that we still do have a self install impermanent portable option for the very folks we mentioned at the top students, lower income, folks who just don't have the resources to call in a professional electrician. And as I mentioned, you know, this will double the cost essentially for systems greater than three ninety one watts. That's a real bummer. We know that's going to change over time. And that's one of the reasons it's really important for states to adopt this amendment exempting systems lower than three ninety one watts because we start to establish a safety record. This is what Germany did. If we can establish a safety record at three ninety one watts and below, We UL will respond, National Electrical Code will respond, and this will really speed them along toward that safe self installation vision that we all have that is in Europe right now that we know will transform the lives of of many Vermonters.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes. Because it's an analyst. Do you have other questions?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Well, just confused because what what we're talking about, 1,200 watts, now it's three ninety one. What what happens with it space in between three ninety one and twelve hundred?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: In that space in between under UL 3,700, you need a professional electrician. So there are sort of two groups, right? If Vermont adopts this amendment, there is the self installation group under three ninety one watts between three ninety one and twelve hundred. You for larger systems, you would need to call in a professional electrician to do some electrical work at your your house. No. It's not as extensive as it would be for rooftop solar, for instance. It's a pretty a pretty minor alteration, but it does increase the cost and it does increase the barrier to entry. But it is necessary as a first step to ensure absolute safety. And that's what UL was thinking about in their new guidance.

[L. J. Cafferty (Office of Legislative Council)]: Did that answer?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yes, think so. And just as a follow-up to that, I mean, I read the UL white paper on this, what I heard was that the industry is going to respond. So that meeting is sort where we're at right now. But can you speak at all to that, about how the industry is responding to the, you know, these directives from UL?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the necessary first step. If we don't make this permissible in enough states, they can't even start that research and development phase. They are interested, they know this is happening, they are as we speak working on products that are UL 3,700 compliant, but yes, they know and we know from working with folks who have been through this a few times, as Bill Brooks said, he's been in this rodeo more than once. It's gonna change as time goes on, they're gonna start really conservatively. And as we establish that safety record, they're gonna change their standards as time goes on, but we can't pass go until we get this ball rolling in enough states to really start at zero, we're essentially starting at zero. I mean, I mentioned that system that's available in all 50 states, very few people actually have it. So we need to get that safety data, we need to demonstrate that people really want this, and we know they do.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: And when you say you already said compliant, you mean for self installation, like they're working towards that?

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Currently, we are involved in a proposal to National Electric Code that that does have the three ninety one watt exemption. Currently, UL 3,700 does not have that And and I do just wanna say, and this is in this document that I think I should send out. Germany just released its norm, which is, like two months ago, that's equivalent to our UL standard, meaning for all this time for ten years, they've had nothing from a standard body like UL, what they've had is legislation that stands as a bridge and establishes safety standards. So we think we should follow a similar pattern.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you. So we're almost out of time, but last question to you.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Senator Williams. Question. These are just standard solar panels? They're not anything that you buy you buy over the shelf with power.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: That's right. The inverter

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: is what's on the I'm concerned about, you know, the number of panels that we have to recycle, which can't recycle them. So

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know about Vermont. Here in California, there is a pretty robust recycling industry. So so I can't speak to that in where you are. Are you saying that they aren't recyclable?

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Well, I will probably have more testimony on that. I

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: just wonder if there is something special.

[Cora Stryker (Co‑Founder, Bright Saver)]: No, nothing special. These are standard solar panels. What's special is the inverter that plugs directly into the wall.

[Senator Terry Williams (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Senator Anne Watson (Chair)]: Yeah. Super. Well, thank you so much, Laura. We're so grateful to have you join us today. So with that, we are