When my husband and I designed our current house, we did it with solar power in mind. The house faces north, the roof pitch is steep for better solar gain, and we had it pre-wired for solar.

Five years later, we’ve finally had the panels installed. And while I’ve been itching to have it done for years, I’m glad we waited.

Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, the biggest impact we could make for ourselves and the environment was to get an electric car. So that purchase came first. We love the Leaf we bought, and it costs us about a quarter of what we were spending on petrol. Those fuel savings helped us save up for solar.

Additionally, the technology has both improved and gotten cheaper over the past five years, so what we are able to afford today is much better than what we could have gotten when we built the house. I’m sure if we waited another five years, we’d see more technological improvements.

But with so many people switching to electric cars these days, New Zealand’s electricity suppliers are more frequently firing up the coal and gas generators as our current renewables production falls behind consumption. So I’m thrilled to have our own solar array, for our own benefit, and for the benefit of the planet.