Tag: solar panels

It’s Sun Day!

Today, September 21, 2025, is being celebrated as Sun Day in multiple locations in the United States, with a few locations in other countries joining in.

The brainchild of Bill McKibben, long-time climate evangelist, Sun Day is taking place around the time of the equinox and celebrates solar power, which is now the cheapest source of power on earth. And, yes, you can power your town with solar even at night, thanks to batteries and other energy storage mechanisms. Also, giving a shout-out to wind power, which is sun -related because it’s the sun’s differential warming of the earth’s surface that gives rise to wind. Wind energy is another way to provide power when the sun isn’t shining.

There are events organized by many partners in hundreds of locations, including concerts, e-bike and EV rallies, marches, speakers, technology tours and information booths, and art exhibits. I want to give a special shout-out to the event in my state capital, Albany, organized by my beloved Third Act Upstate New York working group. I wish that I could be joining them in person, but distance and my health situation are keeping me close to home.

My observance of Sun Day is confined to this post, but my celebration of solar power is ongoing! After a several years’ transition, our home and most of our transportation is powered by the sun. We weatherized our 70-ish-year-old house and adopted energy-efficient lighting and appliances. We installed a hybrid heat pump hot water heater and a geothermal heating and cooling system, enabling our disconnecting from the methane system, which had been delivering fracked gas that has caused so much pollution and sickness for our Pennsylvania neighbors. We drive a 2017 fully electric Chevy Bolt and a plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica minivan, so we only use gasoline when we need to take the van on a long trip.

Because we have large shade trees on the south side of our home, we weren’t candidates for rooftop solar, so we own panels at a solar farm. Over the course of the year, we generate enough kilowatt-hours to cover our needs. Currently, we pay about $20/month to the power company for distribution and about $28/month to the company that rents the land for the solar farm and maintains our panels. It’s really great to have such low energy costs and it’s thanks to the sun!

I was happy to see solar power expanding, thanks, in part, to the energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act passed under President Joe Biden and New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act. The implementation of programs under these laws were helping to expand access to solar energy, especially for lower-income folks. Unfortunately, President Trump has curtailed many of those programs and Governor Hochul and her administration are way behind schedule in implementing the CLCPA.

Even without subsidies, solar energy is still cheaper to install than fossil fuel energy, even though fossil fuels are still heavily subsidized, so the hope is that economic factors will prevail and solar will continue to expand. In some countries, like Germany, it’s become common to have solar panels that can be hung from a balcony railing and plugged into the electrical system of the home. Utah recently became the first state in the US to allow this. If more states adopt this approach, solar will be able to spread more quickly because it would available to renters and homeowners who don’t have an appropriate rooftop. Granted, you can’t power your home with a small panel like these, but you can reduce your bills and help reduce strain on the grid.

The expansion of cheap solar power is also a boon in places that don’t have a reliable electric grid available. For example, Pakistan has seen a huge uptick in solar power. In the United States, solar is an opportunity to provide power to remote locations, such as some reservations, that currently don’t have any electricity available. As we saw during the pandemic, these locations also did not typically have a source of clean, safe drinking water. Solar power can be used to power pumps for water wells, leading to much better health and quality of life for residents.

So, hurrah for Sun Day and for the sun powering our lives! I’m grateful that every day is Sun Day at our home and want to thank all that are working to make solar power available to ever more people around the world.

Honolulu vs home

Being here in Honolulu for a few weeks has highlighted some differences from being at home in upstate New York, other than driving:
*  Today, there was the monthly test of the tsunami warning system. E’s neighborhood is higher in elevation, so she lives above the evacuation zone. When we were staying in the hotel in Waikiki, the first several floors of the hotels were mostly dedicated to parking. This allows them to keep people safely on the upper floors in case of tsunami.
*  A heat wave here is not as hot as in most of the rest of the US.  We have been having a heat wave with some records tied or broken, but it is only 88-91 degrees F. (31-33 degrees C.)
*  There are microclimates everywhere, but they are much more noticeable here. For instance, in E’s neighborhood, you can be walking in what seems to be a rain shower – while there are no clouds overhead and the sun is shining.  The rain is falling in the  Palolo valley and being blown into Kaimuki.
*   At home, I’ve never had a tiny chameleon show up in the bathroom, matching its color to the bathmat.
*  There is much more coverage in the news on climate change and renewable energy.  Despite Hawai’i being the most remote islands in the world, the effects and the threat of more effects are real.
*  Because the angle of the sun is higher here, solar panels can often be placed on more than just the south-facing slope of a roof.
*  Unlike home, there is almost never a basement here. It ‘s strange to me to see water heaters just sitting outside under the eaves.
*  There is a lot more discussion and coverage of homelessness and affordable housing.  Rents and real estate prices here are very high and there are many people who can’t afford them, even when they are employed. While there are single people who are homeless, there are also many homeless families.
*  The tension between the indigenous Hawaiians and the state is obvious. There are demonstrations almost daily against development of certain areas. While these problems are also present in New York, they are much more hidden.