Powering tech life is droll, powering Leftcoastian tech life, doubly so.

I've been working, for a while, on a solar panel and battery system for my old utility van, which typically parks in a sunny spot near my office, because with it, I can kill two birds with one stone:

1. The preferred parking spot for my old van is sunny, and oriented such that that early afternoon sun comes directly in the windshield. I felt the need for a way to keep the van from heating up in the summer which didn't require my repeatedly unfolding and folding those silly shades that go behind the windshield. Solar panels in front of the windshield (only when the van is parked, of course) can do that.

2. Solar panels, keeping a separate 24V battery system topped off, together with inverters and such, will provide a convenient way to use my electric kettle to make a cup of tea (and power other devices requiring electricity) unhindered by the power failures here in PG&E country, which have occurred, from time to time, and seem likely to occur more frequently in the near future.

So I do have justification for straining my own meager budget to accommodate the (fairly ridiculous) added cost of my own small contribution to "renewables".

California secretly struggles with renewables