The Dominican Republic, obviously, has lots of sun. Yet electricity is largely generated with fossil fuels and, to a much lesser extent, hydro. There are shortages; the Dominican government is working on the construction of two coal plants. Coal! Whereas the country does not have coal itself – it has to be imported.

It makes us feel bad to be using electricity from the grid. And to let, in a world being threatened by climate change, all that solar energy around us go to waste. Whereas we should tap that solar we instead use unsustainably generated energy from the grid, thus worsening climate change.

So we’ve started going solar. Small start: six panels and a controller. Helps us reduce our energy use during the day and load our batteries for when the electricity company, Edenorte, chooses not to send us power. Which is about eight hours a day.

We haven’t really done the math, but it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t feel right to be using energy generated with fossil fuels when clean energy is all around us. We’ll expand when we have the money. So we can cover more of our supply, and can power energy efficient air conditioners.

Will keep you informed of developments!