Small solar (panel) syndrome

The wonderful thing about a Shabbat morning walk from Glenhazel to Waverley, aside from the time to catch up with one’s wife, is the number of solar panels that can be counted along the way. The expedition to a Barmitzvah across Louis Botha Avenue might have taken us an hour from our side of the suburb, but it passed in a numerical flash.

A friend recently mentioned that his wife told him that she sees no need to go to Kruger Park in July. Rather, she suggested, they should spend a few days of the holiday driving through Woodmead Springs to see how many panels they could tally. Although it sounds unchallenging, anyone who counts solar installations as I do will confirm that some houses make it quite difficult not only to identify, but also to number. Much like a maybe-leopard or maybe-branch in a confirmed tree in the park.

Although there’s a good chance that the conversation at lunch covered a variety of topics, the dominant theme was without question the many nuances of alternative and sustainable energy. Even though I’m not a very technical person, I was reasonably impressed by my ability to hold my own when debating battery sizes and inverters. But I did find myself being triggered and unnerved by those with way more panels than I have.

Maybe it’s a male thing.

The most insecure moment was when a woman told us that they have enough to heat their pool at a constant 25 degrees even in winter. “We need to do that!” I whispered urgently to my wife who was more impressed by the precision of the temperature than the number of panels that would take.

“Howard, you haven’t swum in the pool since, like, 2015, and you only went in to rescue the dog! We don’t need to heat it. Besides, we’re contemplating filling in the pool or converting it into a JoJo water tank because no one, aside from the pool guy, has gone near it in years.”

It might be true. But I still felt much less of a man than her husband, who had gifted her all that spare electricity.

It took a few moments to recover from that blow when someone else, at the same lunch, flippantly mentioned that he had installed 40 panels on their rooftop. It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it – like it meant nothing and he would be surprised if anyone would even get out of bed for less.

The walk home felt longer. Not only was I tired from the post COVID-19 socialising, but on the way back, I had the sense that my 14 panels, 8kva inverter, and 2 x 5kva batteries just didn’t seem to sparkle the way they did on the way to lunch. My wife tried to assure me that I was no less a man and that she loved me for who I am, not for my panels. And yet even with her assurances, I felt only a little bit better when we passed through Highlands North, and I counted less than 10 panels per roof (on average).

They used to say that you can judge a man by the friends he keeps. I suspect that in modern day South Africa, it’s become more about the panels and the size of his inverter.