In short, what has happened while Rome burns and our president urges fossil fuel companies to “drill, baby, drill!” is that solar energy has become mainstream elsewhere with astonishing rapidity. China is the industrial superpower leading the way, Mr. McKibben told his audience last fall. China is manufacturing the equipment at a huge scale, making it available at lower than ever costs not just to power companies but also to individual customers. According to Carbon Brief, a British journal that covers energy and climate news, China’s solar-panel exports to the Global South more than doubled between 2022 and 2024. Suddenly, solar is a main power source in places such as Pakistan, Brazil, South Africa, and Uzbekistan.
It is nothing short of a solar revolution and — other than efforts by environmentalists like Mr. McKibben to spread the good news — citizens of the United States have been left almost completely in the dark about it. We are firmly on the wrong side of this transition to a new and better way.
Key to this energy revolution — which promises not just to free us from the chains of high fuel costs but is the brilliant new light that may, quite literally, save the earth from climate catastrophe — is something called “balcony solar” or “portable solar.” We as Americans are generally familiar with fields of solar arrays, and we’ve all seen the familiar rooftop panels (which are right now too expensive for many power customers); balcony solar is something cheaper and more accessible. It is a small, affordable system that the customer puts outside on a balcony railing, patio, yard fence, etc., and, via a micro-converter, plugs straight into their regular, standard outlet, allowing the household to draw less power from the grid. If the sun is shining, all your appliances — refrigerator, lights, computer — can draw power from your mini solar unit, reducing your bill and reducing your so-called footprint. Fill a town or city with these small units and the impact is transformative.
Mr. McKibben’s talk in September was followed by a question-and-answer period from the audience. One question on that memorable night was: Well, okay, but how can someone here on Long Island get their hands on balcony solar? That was only six months ago, and the answer then was basically: Sorry. Balcony solar isn’t available here yet. Yes, America has been left behind. A customer in Dakar or Delhi can happily buy a balcony solar unit and begin saving money, and saving the planet, but New Yorkers cannot.
Well, hallelujah! That may soon change. The Solar Up Now NY (SUNNY) Act sponsored in the New York State Senate by Liz Krueger and in the Assembly by Emily Gallagher was passed unanimously in the Senate on April 22; a companion bill is active in the Assembly Energy Committee. The bills would legalize and regulate these small plug-in systems.
Perhaps we should not be surprised that the power companies — and sellers of traditional solar-panel — in New York State are less than thrilled with these developments.
In Newsday on Sunday, a representative for PSEG, astonishingly, played dumb. This is, apparently, the strategy of our primary power company here on the South Fork: to pretend it’s not happening. “PSEG Long Island is not familiar with this technology,” a spokeswoman named Elizabeth Flagler told Newsday in a statement: “We have not received any applications to these specifications.”
Call State Senator Anthony Palumbo to express thanks for his “yes” vote on the SUNNY Act and to urge further action. Call PSEG. Call Town Hall. We need balcony solar and we need it now.