All Politics is Local: Neighbors Squabble over Home Solar Panels

If you ever had to put up a fence on a common border with your neighbor, you will know how sensitive any kind of improvement to your property can be to your neighbors. What can neighbors argue about? Almost everything. So it should come as no surprise that there are petty and some not so petty arguments about homeowners placing home solar panels on their roofs.

Take this dispute in Pennsylvania where a homeowner placed a solar array in his backyard. There has been a huge pushback from his neighbors, who, according to CBSPittsburgh, “are decidedly cool on his panel ensemble, which they say is an eyesore that stares them in the face every time they walk out of their homes.”

You may even find objections to solar panels going up on an old contaminated chemical site like in Mansfield, Massachusetts, where some of the neighbors objected to the brown field because, according to The Sun Chronicle, there is the “potential for deforestation, light pollution, noise, threats to public health, fire hazards and bright reflections from the panels.” Sounds like chemicals are preferred to solar panels.

Another neighbor wrote back in a letter to the editor in the Mansfield:

This solar installation would be on land that was previously used – and contaminated by – industrial use. It will not require us to destroy open land, and will put to use property that has never been residential. I have a hard time imagining that the neighbors purchased property next to a contaminated industrial site expecting that it would one day be a pristine wilderness. Surely they always knew there was a possibility it could be reused for an industrial use? How is an installation of solar panels more visually offensive than a factory or heavy equipment storage facility?

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The good news for those promoting solar power is that as much as some neighbors may argue about solar panels, the trend is that when one homeowner places solar panels on their roof, then other neighbors may be persuaded to follow suit.

The Journal of Economic Geography published a study that indicated that if your neighbor goes solar, you are more likely to want to place solar panels on your roof as well. According to UtilityDive.com, the study shows that there is a “strong linkage between one home’s solar panel and the likelihood another nearby will go green.”

Neighborly battles can be divisive and contribute to hard feelings all around. But if solar panels can influence neighbors to work together, that will contribute much to neighborly harmony and good will.