Canary Media’s Electrified Life column shares real-world tales, tips and insights to demystify what individuals can do to shift their homes and lives to clean electric power. Canary thanks Lunar Energy for its support of the column.
John Smillie had long been concerned about the climate crisis. But in 2019, he started to feel really anxious. He’d always thought bigger, more powerful actors would eventually step in to solve the problem, but reading the news about intensifying wildfires, floods and other disasters, he realized climate change was hitting hard now.
His unease began to affect his personal life. “My wife told me, ‘You’ve got to do something. This isn’t good for you,’” said the 36-year-old finance manager and father.
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So he took her advice, volunteering with advocacy nonprofits Citizens’ Climate Lobby and the League of Women Voters and throwing himself into decarbonizing their family’s home. In the years since, Smillie has replaced most of the home’s single-pane windows with double-pane ones, sealed ducts, added insulation to the attic, and installed a heat-pump water heater and a heat-pump air conditioner/heater — steps that together have enabled them to slash fossil gas use by 84 percent and their home’s calculated CO2 emissions by 46 percent.
Smillie, who lives in the 16,000-person town of Crawfordsville, Indiana, had also initially considered getting solar panels, but his roof stymied him. The home’s dormer windows take up too much roof space and would shade the panels, rendering them far less efficient.
As he looked around at other buildings in his neighborhood, it struck him that he could still install solar panels — just not on his own roof.
The Montgomery County Youth Service Bureau was located right down the street and had a flat roof that was perfect for solar. He pitched the idea to the nonprofit’s executive director Karen Branch and offered to donate $30,000 — the amount he’d have spent on a solar array for his own house — to help the organization solarize.
“We were obviously very surprised and excited” to be offered this “huge gift” to adopt solar, Branch said. “It was a no-brainer for us,” she said.
In August 2022, the youth bureau’s 9.9-kilowatt solar array went live. It has cut utility bills this summer by about half, saving the nonprofit $150 per month on average, Branch said.
This past July, the group’s power bill for its 11,000-square-foot building was only $120 — even less than the bill for Branch’s 2,500-square-foot home, she said.
Those saved dollars funnel back into the organization’s programs, which provide mentoring, court advocates, supplemental food and more. The nonprofit aided 3,200 youth last year.
Smillie’s donation has proved to be “the gift that keeps on giving,” she said.
Climate solutions at the community level
Helping the Montgomery County Youth Service Bureau get solar panels showed Smillie that he could leverage his passion for clean-energy solutions not just to reduce his own carbon emissions, but also those of his broader community. He wanted to continue multiplying his impact like this, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.
Then last summer, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most ambitious climate legislation in history. The law makes it easier for nonprofits, schools and other tax-exempt entities to access clean-energy tax credits. Despite not having a tax bill, these organizations can now get 30 percent of the cost of a solar project back from the federal government as a direct payment.
Smillie’s county of Montgomery, the site of a shuttered coal plant, also qualifies for an additional 10 percent tax-credit bonus, because the federal government classifies Montgomery as an energy community. And, if an organization installs equipment that meets requirements for being partially manufactured in the U.S., it could get another 10 percent off.
Smillie saw a huge opportunity. He learned as much as he could about the new climate law, especially through the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which offered trainings about the complex legislation. Armed with that knowledge and his background in finance, he started looking for other nonprofits that he could help to go solar.