Palisadian-Post
Serving the Community Since 1928
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks in a small Austrian village near Kitzbühel, surrounded by mountains, fields full of wildflowers and traditional wooden chalets. I visit every year, but this year I couldn’t stop noticing how much solar energy there is. Panels cover homes, barns, hotels and businesses, yet none of it feels out of place.
The village hasn’t lost its Alpine charm. If anything, the solar makes it feel quietly modern while maintaining its traditional look.
Driving around, it feels like these small villages are leading the world, so I looked into it. Austria is, in fact, now one of the world’s solar leaders. Measured by installed solar capacity per person, Australia ranks first, followed by the Netherlands and Germany. Austria ranks fifth in the European Union and about sixth worldwide. The United States ranks around 17th, just to offer a comparison.
If California were its own country, it would rank about third in the world for solar per person, just ahead of Germany. It would also rank around eighth for the total amount of solar installed and would be one of the world’s leaders in the percentage of electricity produced by solar.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know that by driving through our communities.
In this small piece of Austria, solar is visually obvious. It’s woven directly into villages through nearly every surface that faces the sun, including solar walls and balconies.
Much of California’s solar capacity is somewhere most of us rarely see it. Massive solar facilities cover stretches of inland California and its deserts.
That difference raises an important question: If we have millions of roofs, walls, parking lots and other built surfaces soaking up sunlight every day, why are we sacrificing intact land to produce clean energy?
Deserts are not empty spaces waiting to be used. They are fragile ecosystems filled with plants, animals, pollinators, ancient soils and wildlife corridors. Building a solar facility requires clearing vegetation, compacting soil, constructing roads and adding long transmission lines. Some of these landscapes take generations to recover.
From a land-use perspective, adding solar to surfaces we’ve already built is far superior. Rooftops, parking lots, schools, apartment buildings, warehouses and landfills can generate enormous amounts of electricity without destroying more habitat. Solar canopies over parking lots also provide shade and help reduce the urban heat island effect created by large areas of exposed pavement. Solar on homes and businesses produces electricity close to where it will be used, while batteries can keep more of that power available after sunset.
We also need to think beyond the roof.
Balcony solar has become increasingly common in parts of Europe. Small systems can be mounted on balcony railings, terraces or exterior walls, giving apartment residents and renters a way to produce some of their own electricity. European systems are often designed to connect to a household circuit. California regulations don’t yet make that European plug-in model equally simple, but the idea shows how much unused space we’re overlooking.
California may finally be catching up. Senate Bill 868, known as the Plug and Play Solar Act, would allow people to connect small solar systems of up to 1,200 watts through a standard outlet without going through the usual utility approval process or paying interconnection fees. This could make solar accessible to renters and apartment residents who don’t control their roofs.
The bill passed the California Senate 35-1 and the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee 18-0. It is now awaiting action in the Assembly Appropriations Committee after its July 1 hearing was postponed.
Solar walls and facades offer even more possibilities. Solar can now be incorporated into exterior cladding, balcony railings, awnings, skylights and windows. These systems don’t have to look like equipment attached to a finished building—they can become part of the architecture itself.
And no, it doesn’t have to be ugly.
When solar is planned from the beginning, panels can follow the roofline, sit flush with the surface and form clean, intentional patterns. All-black panels can resemble modern roofing. Solar glass, facade panels and coordinated framing can make a building feel contemporary and beautifully designed.
Take it from a small Austrian village where centuries-old chalets are covered in solar without losing any of their charm.
As Pacific Palisades rebuilds, we have an opportunity to stop treating solar as something added at the end. It can be part of the roof, the balcony, the walls and the shaded places where we park. We can produce clean electricity while protecting the wild places that have already given up enough.
Here in the Palisades, homeowners can take another direct step. Join Resilient Palisades on August 3 at 6 p.m. for the official launch of Power Up Palisades. The free webinar will explain how the community solar and battery program works, introduce vetted installers, and help residents understand available incentives and their next steps.
California already produces an extraordinary amount of solar energy. Now we need to make it easier to generate more on existing homes, apartments, schools, businesses and other developed spaces, as well as the communities we’re rebuilding now.
The greenest place for our next solar panel is a surface we’re already building.
Sara Marti is a board member and the communications director of Resilient Palisades. For more information on Resilient Palisades, visit www.resilientpalisades.org.
Serving the community of Pacific Palisades, California, since 1928.
Palisadian-Post
P.O. Box 725
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
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