News Reporter: Climate Coach: Why you should consider plug-in solar panels

Tuesday, 25 August 2026

Climate Coach: Why you should consider plug-in solar panels

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By Michael J. Coren

Welcome. This week, fat marmots and monarch hope. But first, let’s revisit why plug-in ‘balcony solar’ may be for you if you can’t put solar panels on your roof. I’ll be back next week with a new column.

Fifty-three million U.S. households cannot install rooftop solar, primarily due to building and roof limitations, because they live in apartments or because of their status as renters.

I’m one of them.

But as prices plummet and technology shrinks, soon almost anyone in the United States may be able to plug in to the sun. For a few hundred dollars, portable panels that hang on any sunny surface can pump free solar electricity into your home via a wall socket.

“Balcony solar” and other portable solar equipment avoids the complicated installation, roof mounts, permits and other annoyances that can get in the way of rooftop solar — and drive up costs far beyond the panels themselves.

In Germany, balcony solar is hugely popular: as many as 4 million systems hang on railings there, equivalent to the capacity of several large power plants. (Yes, there is a one-word German name for it: Balkonkraftwerke.)

I wanted to test how a system might work at my home. So I called up Pranav Myana, a physics major who recently dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin to launch a balcony solar start-up, Zoltux. With his guidance, I threw four panels on my patio, hooked up an inverter and plugged the system into my wall. During the demo, on a cloudy San Francisco morning, I managed to generate about 200 watts — almost enough to power my fridge.

I was impressed that setup took only 15 minutes and would be easy enough for someone to do on their own, without having to pay for installation.

In sunny conditions, a four-panel, 800-watt unit like the one I tried should generate enough power to juice household appliances. With more hardware, these portable, modular systems can scale up to 4,000 watts, powering a significant share of the electrical load in the average home.

Write to me at climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails.

Click here to read the column

Field Sample

A remote stretch of the tropical Pacific Ocean is amplifying destructive floods across the United States.

This year, total atmospheric moisture levels have been about 5 to 15 percent above average in the Pacific and across much of the U.S. That’s thanks, in part, to El Niño, and climate change. An analysis by The Washington Post shows this extra moisture is helping to drive record-breaking rainfall in parts of 44 out of 48 states, covering about 90,000 square miles.

Learning Curve

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is plunging.

New satellite data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research suggests Amazon deforestation is at its lowest level since 2013. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who returned to office in 2023, has prioritized environmental enforcement, reports environmental news site Mongabay.

Read more about Brazil’s progress toward its goal of stopping illegal deforestation by 2030.

Snapshot

Bears don’t get all the fun. Every summer, marmots eat as much as possible to fatten up and survive the winter.

Fat Marmot Week is your chance to vote on yellow-bellied marmots, the alpine residents studied by the Marmot Project at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), an environmental research nonprofit in Colorado.

The Marmot Project at the RMBL has been following marked individuals from birth to death since 1962. The project aims to understand Marmots’ behavior, communication and social lives.

First, meet the marms to assess the contenders and then fill out a bracket for which will be the fattest on Aug. 24, Aug. 26, and Aug. 28. The winner will be announced Aug. 29.

For my money, Dandelion’s looking pretty chunky.

Yellow-bellied Marmot. (iStock)

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The Second Degree

Last week, I wrote about how to find the three best native plants that will thrive in your garden (find out yours using the graphic).

Many of you shared your recommendations and favorites.

“Instead of weed whacking along the fence, you can create a pollinator garden,” wrote Neil Frisch, whose personal favorite native is butterfly weed. Many of you suggested milkweed (monarch butterflies regularly use around 30 of the more than 73 species native to the U.S.).

Coneflowers, redbuds, dogwoods, and black-eyed Susans were also popular plants (there are multiple species of each). Check your native plant society for the best ones adapted to your environment.

As many of you noted, we picked three that were most likely to thrive in every state but no native plant will work everywhere. Confirm local conditions in your garden fit the bill. The Wildr Places app can help.