Climate Adaptation
When Smoke Blotted Out the Sun, Rooftop Solar Withered
People who invested in solar to protect against fire-related power outages found their panels effectively blacked out.
Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco at 10:20am on Sept. 9.
This article is for subscribers only.
When deadly wildfires tinted Western skies a Martian hue this week, homeowners with their own rooftop solar systems were able to tell with great precision just how much useful sunlight reached them through the gloom: next to none.
Wednesday was “the worst generation day, ever,” said Mary Holstege, a retired software engineer in Cupertino, California, who went solar a year ago. Her system, which puts out 40 kilowatt-hours a day in the summer, barely dribbled out 1.65 — maybe enough to dry a load of laundry.