Highlights from Our Preparing for Sun Day 2025 Call

On July 23, we came together with Sun Day partners and Third Actors to share stories of resilience, innovation, and collective action in the growing movement for clean energy. Keep reading for excerpts from the conversation.

The call opened with music and a warm welcome from Anna, who introduced the theme of the day: mobilizing solar energy and grassroots energy ahead of the upcoming Sun Day on September 21. We heard from Kitty Calhoun and Angelo Baca who shared powerful reflections on the toll that extractive industries have taken on the Navajo Nation. They spoke about the health and environmental consequences faced by their communities, and why a just transition to solar energy isn’t just a climate imperative—it’s a moral one. Their stories were rooted in on-the-ground efforts, including community-led solar installations and a collaborative film project documenting the Navajo people’s resilience and vision for a cleaner future.

Next, Utah State Representative Dr. Raymond Ward shared his story of driving legislative change that legalized plug-in balcony solar panels in his home state. Inspired by similar programs in Germany, Dr. Ward explained how simple regulatory barriers were preventing everyday people from accessing solar power.(Read his transcript below.) From there, the focus shifted to community resilience. Roishetta Ozane, founder of The Vessel Project in Louisiana, gave a moving presentation about her organization’s work providing mutual aid in the wake of devastating hurricanes. She described how the Vessel Project is now building a solar-powered climate resiliency hub—one that can provide power during blackouts, support disaster recovery, and model a more equitable energy system rooted in care, justice, and local leadership.

Jeremy Friedman, Third Act Campaign Strategist,  shared ways to join the “Solar Sprint” to take advantage of solar and electric vehicle tax credits in 2025 before they end prematurely due to the recent bad budget bill, and introduced opportunities for Sun Day and beyond to participate in Third Act campaigns advancing local and state clean energy policies like cost-saving Smart Solar Permitting.  We wrapped up the call with Deborah Moore, Co-Coordinator of Sun Day at Third Act, showcasing how people can get involved with Sun Day to grow our clean energy movement and make visible our support, from attending a Sun Day event, hosting an event, putting a sign in your home o car window, sharing a clean energy story online, writing a letter to the editor, and other ways.

The message throughout was clear: by harnessing both solar power and people power, we can build a future that is sustainable, resilient, and just. September 21 is fast approaching—and with it, a chance to step up, stand together, and shine a light on what’s possible.

Below is a brief excerpt from the conversation between Dr. Raymond Ward and Bill McKibben

Dr Raymond Ward: I just read a newspaper story that people in Germany could buy one of these. And I’m like, well, why can’t I buy one of those?

It took a while to figure out. At first, I assumed that it was a government regulation of some sort, and then it just took, well, realize it’s not a government regulation. It’s just what has happened with our safety agency, our electrical safety agency, which is Underwriter Laboratories here in the United States, and the equivalent organization in Germany, four years ago, had laid out a safety profile that says, hey, look, if panels meet these specifications, they’re below this size, then you don’t need a city permit and electrician, you can buy them and plug them in. They’ll be safe. And that has proved out. That’s proved to be the case, they’ve been safe. 5% of people in Germany have bought one. It is not insignificant.

Our equivalent agencies here in the United States: there’s Underwriter Laboratories for profit, and the national electrical codes, which is a nonprofit, and then there’s various utility rules, which, they’re kind of sort of governments. They are large monopolies, but not quite governments. Those are the have been the obstructions. And we just got to start getting through them. We made a first little chip in the armor here in Utah. Very happy about

Bill McKibben: One of the things that we should say is it’s not as if the Germans are actually super loosey goosey about rules and regulations. So if it works there, there’s really no reason it shouldn’t work here. One of the things I was joking about the politics of Utah, one of the things I’ve long maintained is that, in fact, solar power has the capacity to cross partisan lines and things in lots of ways. In fact, the polling demonstrates that it’s as popular with conservatives in this country as it is with liberals, though sometimes I think for different reasons. The sense that your home is your castle and now you have a power supply for it may be particularly attractive to more conservative Americans. What what was the reaction along those lines that you found?

This is as dangerous as a toaster. Just let me buy one and have one here. – DRW

DRW: The philosophy that was helpful to me was a libertarian philosophy: the government often does things that are well meaning, but that wind up putting barriers in place, especially, presumably, in the name of safety. You pile this regulation and that regulation and be careful for this, and before you know it, you’re blocking something that you meant to have. To then go in and make the argument to say, look, this is safe. There’s not a reason that I can’t go buy these. This is as dangerous as a toaster. Just let me buy one and have one here. And that was persuasive.

I was fortunate enough early on to have conversations with some of the utility mid level engineers that the lobbyist put me in touch with. After we talked it through, they had some demands that they said, Look, this and this has to be in the bill, so we’re sure there’s safety parameters. And I agreed with those, so was happy to put those in the bill. But once those are in the bill, then the utility did not show up to oppose it. And I don’t think many of my colleagues had thought it through a lot, but they knew enough to know that if the utility that the utility would be in the room opposing it, if the utility was against it. So they understood that the utility was neutral on it, and that was enough to win the day.

We find that putting up a solar system in America is about three times as expensive as it is in Australia, not because of the cost of the panels, but because of the delays that come with the extensive permitting process, different across every jurisdiction. – BM

BM: One of the things that’s been established in Europe is that this is a kind of gateway drug, if you will, for people becoming more and more interested in solar power, and many of the people who put them on their verandas, went and put them on their roofs later on.

The same kind of permitting issues arise as we do more elaborate rooftop solar operations in this country, and one of the things we’re working hard on Sunday is to try and spread the example from the EU, but also from Australia. We find that putting up a solar system in America is about three times as expensive as it is in Australia, not because of the cost of the panels, but because of the delays that come with the extensive permitting process, different across every jurisdiction. So I’m hopeful that the work that you did around balcony solar may kind of pave the way for a broader look at permitting reform around these things.

DRW: Start off with no permitting process, and then we’ll work our way towards maybe an easier permitting process.

BM: Your line was exactly right about should be like a toaster or refrigerator. It’s not as if we’ve had an epidemic of solar panel fires sweeping across Australia, even though 40% of the country now has solar panels up on the roof. So there are real and important questions here that we can get at and and there’s also just the excitement for people about getting to watch, getting to plug in the this thing, into their apartment and to the wall, and suddenly, for the first time in their lives, being a little bit independent from the big utilities.

I’m, very happy that this particular part of this revolution has begun in Utah and and I think that that sends a powerful message out to the rest of the country too, that in an age of almost unbelievable division about absolutely everything, there might be some things where we could find some room to work together.

DRW: We’ve got a ways to go. There is a lot of work. I think Underwriter Laboratories is close to the first standard for small panels. I think by the end of the summer, they said they’d have some language out. That will be a huge step that will affect us nationwide, not only in Utah, if they get over that hurdle, but we need advocates. There are changes that will need to be made to the electrical codes and other standards in Underwriter Laboratories. There need to be people who are enthusiastic, who are politely pushing on the places where those changes need to be made, to get medium and larger ones, and to make that permitting process simpler, and in some cases, standards that are safe enough that you don’t need to it’s made safe enough that I can buy it and plug in even some medium sized ones. So I’m so happy to get to talk about it today.

BM: Amen, and that’s definitely a lot of the work that Sun Day is about. And we’ll look forward to seeing some great pictures from around Salt Lake of people who have gotten ahead of the curve. So many thanks for your work.