Photo: Yuma Solar / Unsplash
32 Million Americans Now Live Where Plug-In Solar Is Legal — Here’s the Math
Every plug-in solar tracker, including ours, reports the same thing: eight states, some number of bills pending. Nobody has added up what that actually means in people. We did the arithmetic ourselves — population by population, state by state — so here’s the real number, and how we got it.
The math, state by state
Eight states have signed plug-in solar into law: Utah, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, Vermont, Virginia, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. We pulled each state’s 2026 population estimate (Census Bureau-sourced, via World Population Review) and added them up:
| State | 2026 population (est.) |
|---|---|
| Virginia | 8,811,000 |
| Maryland | 6,231,000 |
| Colorado | 5,957,000 |
| Connecticut | 3,643,000 |
| Utah | 3,502,000 |
| Maine | 1,405,000 |
| New Hampshire | 1,405,000 |
| Vermont | 648,000 |
| Total (8 enacted states) | ~32,026,000 |
We only counted states with a signed law, whether or not it’s fully in effect yet (Virginia’s takes effect January 2027, for example, but it’s law now). We did not count New York, California, or New Jersey in the 32 million figure — all three have passed the legislature but are still awaiting a governor’s signature, so we kept them separate. Population figures are 2026 estimates from the US Census Bureau via World Population Review, current as of this writing; state populations shift modestly year to year, so treat this as a solid working figure, not a precise headcount.
The number that matters more: 101 million
New York’s SUNNY Act and New Jersey’s Garden State Balcony Solar Act have both passed their full legislatures and are sitting on their governors’ desks. California’s SB 868 has passed the Senate 35–1 and is in Assembly Appropriations. If all three become law, the population living somewhere plug-in solar is explicitly legal jumps from 32 million to roughly 101 million — about 29% of the country — almost entirely because New York (≈19.8M) and California (≈39M) are so large. That’s the real stakes of three pending signatures: not three more states on a map, but nearly a third of the US population.
How this compares to Germany
Germany’s Balkonkraftwerk boom is the reference point everyone in this space cites — commonly reported at more than 1 million registered systems as of 2026 (a figure drawn from third-party analysis of Germany’s MaStR registry, not a single official government count; we’re honest about that uncertainty in our Germany comparison piece). Germany’s entire population is about 84 million — smaller than the 101 million Americans who could soon live somewhere plug-in solar is legal. The US legal coverage is starting to outpace Germany’s population base before US installation rates have caught up at all, which is either a sign of enormous headroom or a sign that legality alone isn’t the whole story. Probably both.
The trajectory
Utah was the first state to sign a plug-in solar law, in March 2025, covering about 3.5 million people. Seventeen months later, that number is 32 million — roughly a 9x increase — with three more signatures pending that would take it to 101 million. However this plays out state by state, the population curve is moving fast.
Solarly 
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