It’s not illegal. Currently you need a permit from the electric utility to operate solar on your premise if you still want to be connected to the grid. You can also do off-grid solar, in which case you don’t need a permit at all since you’re not impacting the grid with your solar generation.

As soon as you want to interconnect your solar and turn it from off-grid to on-grid, that is when a utility permit is required. This gives the utility’s engineering department a chance to review your solar setup and determine if it will be safe in the event of a grid disturbance.

Plug-in solar laws look to shift that engineering review and permit process away from the electric utilities to safety laboratories like UL. If all plug-in solar products are required by law to have certain safety functions if they want to be sold as “plug-in” to consumers, then there’s no need for the utility engineering review as products must comply with UL requirements to be sold as “plug-in” devices.

What these laws do is make it easier for prosumers to generate their own electricity if they purchase the right equipment, while also freeing up utilities’ workloads by not having to review even the smallest kinds of arrays (think 10-20 kWac on the residential side vs 500-10,000 kWac on the commercial side). Should make everything smoother for everyone while promoting people’s right to sunlight and electricity generation from that solar access.