Evanston residents embrace solar power despite federal cuts

With the Trump administration slamming the brakes on federal support for renewable energy, the future of solar power in this country is uncertain. But the sun continues to shine, and in Evanston, residents continue to install rooftop panels to turn that into electricity.

It was a year ago when Libby Hill installed 12 rooftop solar panels on her northwest Evanston home. We met up again in late August to find out how those panels are doing.

Hill pulled out her phone and showed us that the system had produced 6.18 megawatt hours of power since they were installed. She has paid for extra electricity just once, when midsummer heat made air conditioning unavoidable. Otherwise, she’s been paying just $19.54 a month, the minimum that ComEd charges for connecting to the grid. 

She relishes checking the SolarEdge app that tracks electricity production, especially on a clear day when the panels are at their most productive. Even when she’s out of the country, she checks to see whether it’s sunny enough at home to keep the solar power humming. 

But the point Hill wanted to emphasize is that she’s not alone. She mentioned several nearby houses with rooftop solar installations, and when she walked around later to confirm, she found even more.

Big trees rule out rooftop solar in many parts of Evanston. But “in my neck of the Evanston woods, I find I’m in good company,” she said. Within a few blocks, she found 12 other solar installations on houses that vary in age and style.

“Homeowners have found suitable locations for panels on house roofs to garages, sometimes sandwiched into the space where the sun reaches on an otherwise tree-shaded roof,” she reported. “Panel-covered roofs face south, east, west and in one case north, and in another case three sides of the roof except north. On my sunny late morning walk, the sun was shining on all.”

Permit applications from the City of Evanston confirm that what she’s observed in her neighborhood reflects a broader pattern. From January 2019 through August of this year, the city issued 409 permits for residential solar installations. For the five years that began in January 2019, the average number of applications per year was 60. Applications rose to 70 in 2022, the year the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law and federal tax credits for solar went into effect. 

Act fast for federal tax savings

Now that the Trump administration’s budget bill has dismantled much of the IRA, tax credits for rooftop solar will expire at the end of this year instead of continuing through 2035. 

Groups like Rewiring America are urging people to act fast, offering tips like this guide to using tax credits before they’re gone. Electric vehicle credits also expire at the end of September. Rooftop solar installations have to be complete and connected to the grid by Dec. 31 to qualify. (Check EnergySage for other available incentives.)

Even with these credits expiring, solar energy will remain a “hedge against utility rates, which have climbed high in recent years and are expected to rise even further as data centers demand more energy and the Trump administration stymies cheap wind and solar power,” Dan McCarthy writes for Canary Media. “Most households that install rooftop solar see their energy bills drop.”

Saving money isn’t the main consideration for everyone, Hill pointed out, and those who can afford the up-front cost have other important reasons to go solar: “People do it because it’s a good thing to do,” she said.

‘Benign and beautiful way to produce energy‘

Bill McKibben, the author of a 1989 book that raised public alarm about the perils of human-caused climate change, is spearheading plans for Sun Day on Sunday, Sept. 21. The event, a revival of sorts of the first Sun Day in 1978, which Hill remembers fondly, will be celebrated locally with events in Wilmette and at Montrose Beach in Chicago. (Find out more here.) 

As McKibben said in a recent interview: “The sudden explosion of solar and wind energy over the last three years is the first time we’ve had anything that’s really started to scale in a way that might make a difference in how hot the planet eventually gets. … We have a benign, indeed, a beautiful way to produce energy, energy from heaven, not from hell.”

Drop by the Sept. 21 Sun Day event at Montrose Beach: “Over 30 groups — from solar installers and nonprofits to justice organizations and houses of worship — will share fun, easy ways to go solar, including community solar that can save you 15–20% on your electric bill.”

Check out Michael Drennan’s December 2024 RoundTable article “holiday recipe for solar panels” for more quick tips on getting started.