The only solar law passed exempts your roof
The only solar law passed exempts your roof
2026-09-15 · Pennsylvania · Legislation
What happened. Act 44 of 2026, signed 20 July 2026, is the only solar statute Pennsylvania enacted in the whole 2025-2026 session. It adds a new Chapter 43 to Title 27, §§ 4301-4307, requiring decommissioning plans and financial assurance for solar energy facilities — and it exempts residential rooftop systems by name.1
What the act requires
A solar energy facility agreement executed after the effective date must provide that the grantee decommissions the facility "no later than 18 months after the facility has ceased producing electricity" (§ 4302), with a recorded decommissioning plan and financial assurance equal to the estimated decommissioning cost, recalculated every five years by a third-party professional engineer (§ 4303).2 The provision on the form and content of decommissioning plans took effect immediately; the remainder takes effect 180 days after approval, on 16 January 2027.
The exemption
Section 4307 provides that the chapter does not apply to "(1) A solar energy facility with a nameplate capacity of two megawatts AC or less. (2) A customer-generator as defined in section 2 of the … Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act. (3) An owner or operator of a normal agricultural operation…"2
A residential rooftop array is a customer-generator and is very far under two megawatts — a typical home system is measured in single-digit kilowatts. It is excluded twice over. The act also preempts conflicting local rules, providing that any local "ordinance or regulation that materially impedes the purposes of this chapter shall be preempted and shall be without force and effect" (§ 4306) — but again, only as to the covered utility-scale class.
So what governs an owner's panels in Pennsylvania
The declaration does, and nothing in state law overrides it. Pennsylvania has no solar-access statute for common-interest communities. An association's power to restrict or prohibit an installation comes from its governing documents and from the general association-powers provisions at 68 Pa.C.S. § 3302 and § 5302, neither of which has been amended since Act 84 of 2018.
That places Pennsylvania in the minority of states. Where a covenant prohibits roof-mounted panels, the prohibition is enforceable on its own terms, and the owner's route is to persuade the board, to seek a variance under whatever architectural-review procedure the documents supply, or to amend the declaration — which in most Pennsylvania communities requires 67% of the votes allocated in the association.
The bill that would have changed it, and where it stopped
The House passed one. HB 1239 would amend 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 3103, 3302, 5103 and 5302 to provide that "the association may not prohibit or restrict the installation or use of a solar energy system on a detached roof," with "detached roof" defined as a roof of a unit that is solely owned by an individual, is not maintained, repaired or replaced by the association, and is not designated as part of the common elements.3
It passed the House on 1 July 2026 by 109-93 and was referred to the Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee on 9 July 2026, where it has had no action.4 A Senate companion, SB 618, has sat in the same committee since 11 April 2025 without a hearing.
The definition is narrower than the headline suggests, and the distinction is the one that decides most real cases. A "detached roof" must be individually owned and not maintained by the association. In a great many Pennsylvania planned communities — townhouse rows in particular — the association maintains, repairs and replaces the roofs, which is precisely why owners pay assessments. Those roofs would fall outside the bill even if it became law.
What the bill would leave associations
Seven enumerated powers, which is a meaningful list rather than a formality: enforcement of health and safety codes; certification standards for solar water-heating systems; recognised electrical standards for electricity-producing systems; painting frames and visible piping "to coordinate with the roofing material"; owner indemnification; aesthetic placement rules; and an amendment added on the floor providing that the subsection "shall not apply to a freestanding solar energy system placed on a parcel of land within a property deeded other than to the association."3
SB 618 is drafted differently and more aggressively: it reaches townhouse units as well as detached roofs, and it gives associations no enumerated regulation powers at all. That difference is the likeliest reason the Senate bill has not moved while the House bill did.
What to watch next
The session ends 30 November 2026 and Pennsylvania has no carryover. If HB 1239 is not reported out of Senate Urban Affairs and Housing, voted by the full Senate and signed before then, it dies and starts again with a new number in 2027-2028 — which is exactly what happened to its predecessor, HB 1759, which was reported as amended in September 2024 and laid on the table two months before sine die.
The House reconvenes 28 September 2026. For boards, the practical reading is that nothing changes this year: a covenant restricting panels remains enforceable, and an association that wants to keep its position should make sure its architectural-review procedure actually works, because a documented, reasoned, timely denial is a very different thing from a silent one.
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