Nov. 2, 2026
By Julia Buskirk, VernonReporter
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – There’s not a single cloud in the sky above the red farmhouse perched just before the crest of the ridge on Swallow Hill Farm. The weather seems to be preparing for what’s to come: a stack of solar panels leans against one of the walls, where three installation crew members from Ethos Green Power Cooperative are beginning to unwind wires.
“This has been nine years in the making,” says Matthew Ploeger, surveying the crew on the hillside.
Ploeger is in charge of coordinating Solar for Homes, a program through Habitat for Humanity of La Crosse working in collaboration with Ethos Green Power Cooperative, Fishers & Farmers Partnership, and Wisconsin Farmers Union to provide free solar installations on the homes of income-eligible farmers who might not otherwise be able to access them. A generous private donation funds the work.
“We’re trying to help them save money, and support their activities and their work as farmers,” Ploeger says.
The program is an offshoot of the Couillard Solar Foundation, which was established in 2017 to support Wisconsin’s transition to renewable energy resources regardless of socio-economic status. This past year, Solar for Homes migrated to Habitat for Humanity of La Crosse, and began coordinating with Ethos Green Power to get solar panels up on the homes of farmers in Vernon county.
“Right now, even sizable farms are struggling, let alone small farms,” says Ploeger. “It’s a way that we can make it a little easier for a handful of small farmers to continue doing what they do.”
First Solar for Homes panels are installed on Swallow Hill Farm
Ximena Bunting-Engel and Noah Engel are the first to receive solar panels through the program. The couple grow root vegetables on their Swallow Hill Farm that they sell at Dane County farmers markets, a line of work that’s followed Noah Engels since he was nine, when he first planted potatoes one summer with his brother.
“It’s something he can’t help doing,” Ximena Bunting-Engel says, laughing.
They got connected to Solar for Homes after getting a heat pump installed by Ethos, and learned they might qualify for the program.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to get solar on farms in places where people might not be able to get it otherwise,” says Bunting-Engel.
As the sun rises over the house, the installation crew gets ready to haul the solar panels to the roof. Ethos electricians Daniel Phillips and Katie-Mae Lamb have installed the inverter at the base of the house, which will take the energy generated by the solar panels and make it usable for the home. The house can still access electricity from the grid on days when there isn’t enough solar power, and the Bunting Engels can opt to sell any extra solar-generated power to the utility when there’s more than they use.
Benefits beyond the savings
The installation crew, Finn Pennington, Bryer Larson, and Tyler McCauley, start carrying panels up a ladder and across the roof, none of them the least bit perturbed by the two stories of height they walk across. Beyond them is the valley, where the majority of maples have lost their leaves by this time in October, and oaks are just starting to shoot up in reds and oranges.
For both the Bunting-Engels and for Matt Ploeger, the lead coordinator for Solar for Homes, the motivation for installing solar goes beyond saving money on electricity bills.
“We’re trying to do what we can to use practices that are good for the plants, the animals, the soil, everyone around us and the people that eat the food,” says Bunting-Engel. “It fits in with all that for us.”
Before working for Solar for Homes, Ploeger was a minister, but the solitary nature of his work as a chaplain in hospices and hospitals didn’t suit his extroverted demeanor. And more and more, he felt called to address the realities of climate change.
“This is a form of ministry,” Ploeger says, looking out over the installation crew, the Bunting- Engels’s red farmhouse, and the hills. “I’m less worried about anybody’s spiritual life in the midst of it, but the real-life tangible benefits to people’s lives is a big part of why I transitioned from ministry to this particular non-profit work.”
The Ethos crew takes a lunch break on the roof. Within a few hours, the Bunting Engels’ home will be powered by the sun now directly over their heads.
Ethos Green Power Cooperative and Solar for Homes invite any interested farmers to reach out to learn more and begin the application process. Powered by a generous private donation, Solar for Homes plans to fund solar installation on the homes of ten farmers in the area that are eligible based on their income bracket.
Julia Buskirk reports, paints, and writes fiction in Southwestern Wisconsin. She is a graduate of UW-Madison where she studied Conservation Biology and Journalism.
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Julia Buskirk reports, paints, and writes fiction in Southwestern Wisconsin. She is a graduate of UW-Madison where she studied Conservation Biology and Journalism.
Julia Buskirk reports, paints, and writes fiction in Southwestern Wisconsin. She is a graduate of UW-Madison where she studied Conservation Biology and Journalism.
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