**Title**: Energy in the North - Terry Chapin
**Date**: August 21, 2024
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Terry Chapin


00;00;00;13 - 00;00;00;21 [Terry Chapin] A large scale solution seemed to be slow in coming. It seems particularly important that individual citizens do something on their own, that might make a difference.

00;00;10;02 - 00;00;21;16 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I speak with Terry Chapman, a 草榴社区 professor emeritus in ecosystem ecology, a climate change scientist and an advocate for sustainable communities in 草榴社区. Terry was instrumental in helping the residents of North Fairbanks install solar panels on their homes. And when I recently visited his home in Gold Stream Valley, I started our conversation by asking Terry what motivated him to get more residential solar power in Fairbanks.

00;00;37;14 - 00;00;43;26 [Terry Chapin] As an ecologist, the things I was interested in or ways in which we could reduce human impact on. Climate. And one of the important ways is by reducing emissions of fossil fuels by using renewable energy. And I was also interested in knowing if there are ways in which individual citizens can make a difference here. And since a large scale solution seemed to be slow in coming. It seems particularly important that individual citizens do something on their own, that might make a difference. One of the things we can do is reduce our energy use. Partly by using less energy and partly by using energy and more renewable forms.

00;01;18;17 - 00;01;20;25 [Terry Chapin] A few years ago. Solarize Fairbanks started out as a program that would assist families and households in buying solar panels and putting in solar panels so that it could be done at the level of individual households rather than just at the level of local, state or national governments. As part of Solarize Fairbanks that group organized various neighborhoods to let people know what the opportunities were. And so what they did was try to recruit families and households to buy solar panels and then make an arrangement with solar panel producers, installing solar panels at a price discount. And so I worked in trying to recruit people from North Fairbanks from Goldstream, Murphy Dome, Farmers Loop, all various parts of north Fairbanks. And I was surprised at the number of people that were interested in getting solar panels. And often the biggest hurdle.

00;02;16;24 - 00;02;20;29 [Terry Chapin] It was also a big hurdle for me is that I knew nothing about solar panels and the technology and how to put them up, how to integrate them into my electrical system. That was a scary prospect. So I never thought about actually doing it, even though I realized it was a good idea. So by working together with Solarize Fairbanks, which knew a lot about the technology and then finding a solar panel provider who had experience in installing solar panels. All of us, ignorant household members were able to to just make a contract with this contractor, and they installed our solar panels.

00;02;56;26 - 00;02;59;15 [Amanda Byrd] What have you found with your solar panels? Do you have a user interface that you can see the solar production?

00;03;03;05 - 00;03;04;21 [Terry Chapin] Yes. So in general, solar panels are almost useless in the wintertime because there's not much solar energy and there's snow covered. But from late February through well into October they produce quite a bit of electricity and of course the amount that they produce depends on how many solar panels you have. So I installed all that our roof would hold. And that's enough so that in midsummer it produces basically all of the electricity that we use. And then it's less than that, proportionally less than that at other times of year.  it doesn't solve the energy problem for us as a household, but it certainly improves the contribution that we can make.

00;03;44;13 - 00;03;54;20 [Amanda Byrd] Terry Chapin is a 草榴社区 Professor emeritus and an advocate for sustainable communities in 草榴社区. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the 草榴社区 Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.