A Michigan bill would deregulate balcony solar — and your association could not stop it either way
A Michigan bill would deregulate balcony solar — and your association could not stop it either way
2026-09-12 · Michigan · Legislation · Pending — not yet law
What happened. A bill that would let Michigan electric customers install small plug-in solar systems with minimal regulatory oversight has been in the House Energy Committee since 19 March 2026 with no hearing. House Bill 5764, sponsored by Rep. Will Snyder (D-87) with fourteen co-sponsors from both parties, would add section 115 to the Clean and Renewable Energy and Energy Waste Reduction Act, 2008 PA 295.1
It is not law.
What it would do
Exempt small portable solar generation devices — the plug-in panels sold for balconies, patios and small yards, typically a few hundred watts — from certain utility interconnection requirements and fees, while preserving safety and notification protocols.
These devices plug into an ordinary outlet rather than being wired into a service panel. They are common in Germany, where a regulatory carve-out produced a large residential market, and essentially absent in the United States because the interconnection paperwork costs more than the hardware.
The Michigan association angle, which is already settled
Michigan associations have not been able to require approval for this since 2 April 2025. The Homeowners' Energy Policy Act, 2024 PA 68, invalidates any provision that prohibits or requires association approval for an energy-saving improvement, and section 3's list is broad enough to cover a solar device on its face.
So HB 5764 would remove the utility's objection. The association's objection was already void.
Where the association's authority actually still sits
Two places, and they are narrow.
The common area and shared roof carve-out. Section 13 of the act excludes a common area and a shared roof — defined as one serving more than one home or unit. A plug-in panel on a balcony that is a limited common element raises a real question: the balcony is not the member's property in the ordinary sense, and it is arguably a common area within the exclusion. That is unresolved, and Michigan has produced no decision construing the act at all.
The aesthetic standards in the policy. MCL 559.309 lets an association deny where a roof-mounted system extends more than six inches above or beyond the roof, does not conform to the roof slope, or has framing or visible conduit that is not silver, bronze or black tone; and where a ground or patio installation is taller than the fence line. Note that the ground-and-patio criterion is a height test. A balcony-mounted panel is not obviously covered by any of them.
The practical position for a Michigan board today
- A plug-in panel on a member's own detached property: the association almost certainly cannot require approval. Section 5 voids the requirement.
- A plug-in panel hanging from a balcony rail in an attached condominium: genuinely unclear. The association's stronger argument is not the solar statute at all — it is the master deed's control over alterations to limited common elements and the physical attachment to the rail.
- Either way, the enforcement posture matters more than the answer. MCL 559.315 gives a prevailing member attorney fees and costs. An association that guesses wrong and enforces pays both sides.
What a board can legitimately require
Safety and attachment, which are not energy questions:
- No penetration of, or permanent attachment to, common elements without the master deed's usual consent. That is an alteration rule, not a solar rule.
- Compliance with the electrical code and any local permit requirement. The act does not override a local, state or federal law and says so.
- Secure mounting. A panel that can fall from a fourth-floor balcony is a liability question, and after Janini the association owes a duty of reasonable care to people below it.
What a board cannot do is write those requirements in a way that functions as a prohibition. Section 9 bars any standard that reduces the system's estimated annual production by more than 10% or raises the member's total installation cost by more than $1,000 — and on a device costing a few hundred dollars, a $1,000 ceiling is not much of a ceiling but a 10% production limit is a real one.
The other energy bills in the same committee
House Bill 5927 (Rep. Reggie Miller, D-31, introduced 30 April 2026) would create a statewide rooftop solar net metering programme with full retail credit for exports and streamlined interconnection, amending MCL 460.1173 and adding 460.1173a. House Bills 6041 and Senate Bills 518 and 519 address community solar facilities. All are in committee; none has had a hearing.
What to watch next
House Energy is also where House Bill 4363, the outright repeal of the solar statute, has sat since October 2025. The same committee holds a bill to expand small-scale solar and a bill to abolish the law protecting it, and has heard neither.
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