Bright Saver launches second balcony solar crowdfunding effort
Oakland, California-based solar nonprofit Bright Saver has kicked off its second crowdfunding campaign through the climate investment platform Climatize.
The launch comes as a response to the nationwide trend of balcony solar, or “plug-in solar” systems, in the U.S. Originally a segment of the market in Germany and central Europe, the concept has taken off in North America over the past year with 35 states introducing legislation to legalize the practice.
As states move to embrace the plug-in solar revolution, Bright Saver is one of the companies leading the pack in making the practice more feasible for the average American. The nonprofit organization’s first crowdfunding offering through Climatize saw major success in June 2025, reaching 248% of its original target and closing early.
Cora Stryker, the nonprofit’s co-CEO, says that the numbers speak for themselves. Now, the issue is scalability and affordability.
“We’ve already shown that people want this,” says Cora Stryker, co-CEO of Bright Saver. “Now the opportunity is to scale it. Every new state that opens up, every new member who joins, and every panel that gets into someone’s hands makes the market bigger. What we are building is a much easier way for Americans to access clean energy.”
Bright Saver already provides plug-in solar kits to members at cost, without adding any sort of additional markup. The firm’s $29 annual membership allows consumers to access its at-cost pricing of $285.30 for a 180 W system.
Broadening the base
Bright Saver’s business model revolves around purchasing panels and equipment in bulk, and then passing those savings to its members. Thanks to the momentum of balcony solar products in the U.S., the organization is now preparing to access a larger market than ever before.
“Plug-in solar is our proof point, not our finish line,” Stryker explains. “If we can bring people together, remove outdated barriers and make one clean-energy technology dramatically easier to access, there is no reason to stop there. We want to do the same thing with the technologies that come next.”
Stryker and Bright Saver also ay the organization intends to apply the same model to other renewable energy technologies, including batteries, heat pumps, and energy financing opportunities. The model turns the company’s membership into a barometer for product demand, and a collective that can help create regulatory change in the U.S.’s energy sector.
The company adds that it believes this connection between residential economics and climate action will lead more Americans than ever to the renewable energy transition.
“We don’t want clean energy to feel like something happening somewhere else, years from now,” Stryker says. “We want people to experience what it can do for them firsthand. Every new household that participates helps show what becomes possible when clean energy is designed around the consumer.”
