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Rooftop Solar Panels: A Solution to the Strained US Electric Grid
For years, Dan Harrison’s home in the western hills of Los Angeles would lose power when it was hot, when it rained, or when it was very cold — sometimes the outages would stretch longer than 10 hours. So, he took matters into his own hands. Over the last six years, he has bought rooftop solar panels and batteries. Now, his house often helps keep the lights on across his neighborhood, near the University of California, Los Angeles.
US electric grids are increasingly under strain, and utility companies are spending tens of billions of dollars on upgrades — expenses that are driving up electric bills. At the same time, power-hungry data centers, electric vehicles, and heat pumps are increasing demand for electricity. But adding new sources of power isn’t easy. Turbines for natural gas plants are scarce. Large wind and solar projects and the transmission lines to connect them to cities are often stymied by local opposition. New nuclear reactors are years away.
The Benefits of Rooftop Solar Panels
One solution is to install more rooftop solar panels and batteries. Each such system is small, but collections of them can act like small power plants by supplying electricity to the grid when demand surges on, say, summer afternoons. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded in a 2016 report that rooftop systems could theoretically provide almost half of the electricity that residents in many states use over a year and as much as 74 percent in sunny California.
Rooftop systems can be installed relatively quickly, and they generate energy that doesn’t travel far. However, the downside is that installing rooftop panels costs more per kilowatt of energy than putting panels in open land. Whether rooftop solar is good for US energy systems depends on how those trade-offs are analyzed, said Severin Borenstein, the faculty director at the Haas School of Business’s Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Impact of Rooftop Solar on the Grid
Solar energy is expected to supply about 7 percent of US electricity this year and 8 percent next year, up from less than 1 percent 10 years ago. Rooftop systems produced a fraction of that, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In California, utility-scale solar delivers about a fifth of the state’s electricity, and rooftop systems add another 10 percent, according to the California Solar & Storage Association.
State regulators and utilities contend that without safeguards, rooftop installations can increase energy costs. They say that if too many people join Mr. Harrison in zeroing out their utility bill, much of the cost of maintaining the grid will fall on renters and others who cannot afford solar panels. In 2023, California’s Public Utilities Commission sharply reduced the value of the credits for new solar systems.
Conclusion
For Mr. Harrison, the environmental benefits are an added benefit to having peace of mind. “Now,” he says, “I don’t even notice if the power goes out in the neighborhood.” Home energy data was recorded every 15 minutes on June 12, 2025, in Los Angeles and provided by Enphase. Solar panel adoption data counts each single-family home with rooftop solar panels and covers 70 percent of the US population. Data provided by CAPE Analytics, a Moody’s company, and produced from imagery captured by Vexcel Imaging, EagleView, and other providers. Population data from US Census Bureau, 2019-2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. Read more about rooftop solar panels and their impact on the US electric grid Here
Image Credit: www.nytimes.com