Solar projects are shining light onto a growing trend on Nantucket.

Written by Bruce A. Percelay
Photography by Kit Noble

Location: Pocomo

Number of Panels: 28

Intended Use: Domestic Electricity and Backup Power

For Pocomo resident Carlton Neel, installing solar panels was the eco-friendly cherry on top of a robust renovation project. His mid-century modern home was originally built as a kit house and had all the 60-year-old quirks to prove it, including old-fashioned fuses, no air conditioning, and plenty of mildew. Neel and his wife decided on an overhaul.

Thanks to its mid-century design, the place flaunted a mostly flat roof. This shape, combined with the strength of the sun’s rays reflecting off the water, established a near-perfect opportunity for rooftop solar panels. “The reason I even got interested in solar was being an early adopter of a Tesla car,” Neel says. “I really started noticing what the cost per kilowatt hour is for electricity—and I found it fascinating.” Neel began doing the math with his electricity bills on Nantucket and realized solar could benefit his home, too. He invested in panels for the roof, plus a battery system to store extra energy for power outages. The 12-kilowatt array, installed in September 2021, heats and cools the house, as well as powers the electric pool in the backyard. “Because of the nature of our house, the vast majority of our electric usage is in the summer with air conditioning. So we really get the full benefit of longer days in the summertime,” he explains.

Solar power’s tax incentives, eco-friendly benefits, and ability to lower utility bills have been a net positive for Neel and his family’s home. “Massachusetts is a very solar-friendly state,” Neel says. “You’ve got the combination of high electric expenses on Nantucket, a good location for [solar panels], and the battery backup. It’s a really good environment for solar where we are.”

Location: Tom Nevers

Number of Panels: 23

Intended Use: Electricity for affordable housing buildings

Finding affordable rental housing on Nantucket has long been a challenge for scores of year-round residents. To ease that burden, Housing Nantucket, which was founded 30 years ago, operates 150 below-market value units across the island. Still, low-income residents are especially vulnerable to unpredictable—and often high—energy costs. “They have to make choices between do we turn on the heat today, or do we get food? The cost of living here is just really expensive,” explains Anne Kuszpa, executive director of Housing Nantucket.

That’s when a light bulb went off for Kuszpa: defraying the costs of utility bills with solar power seemed like a natural solution. Thus, fundraising began. In addition to donor contributions and grants from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, the organization worked with environmental nonprofit Remain Nantucket to secure upfront funding for installing solar panels. Kuszpa says, “Remain is not only helping the whole community get more solar here island-wide, but they’re also funding and helping the low-income residents. It really makes a big difference for them to be able to have access to the benefits of green power.”

Housing Nantucket’s solar endeavors began with outfitting its office building in 2014. Then, in 2022, the nonprofit began expanding to its current 86 kilowatts of rooftop solar panels at a dozen different apartment buildings. “We gave [ACK Smart Solar] a list of our 39 properties all over the island. They looked at them in GIS and saw which ones had the best roofs to generate the most energy,” Kuszpa explains. “So we’ve been chipping away at it and doing a couple every year—it’s been really great.”

The organization’s newest solar project is a 120-kilowatt array in the form of a parking pergola on Fairgrounds Road. The panels will cover the parking area between two buildings that make up a new 22-unit development where tenants will be moving in this summer. Upon completion of the parking pergola panels, the entire property will become net zero.

Location: Tom Nevers

Number of Panels: 40

Intended Use: Domestic Electricity, Pool, Panels, Batteries

As a real estate investor, Randy Sharp has a keen sense of what will add value to a home. Solar power is one addition he’d been curious to try out. In 2022, Sharp decided to install a ground array of 40 panels on his property to power his home and pool. “The federal, state, and local initiatives helped with the overall cost,” Sharp explains. “I look at the final cost as adding value to the property—it should be offset by the savings over approximately eight years.”

Solar panels can increase a home’s appraisal value by 4.1 percent, according to a study from Zillow. “They’re an incredible asset to the value of your home,” says Glidden. “You just sleep better at night knowing you’ve got a plan for when the power is out.”

Sharp opted for a battery from Hyannis-based Savant Systems for those power outages. With a battery, surplus energy from the panels is saved for a rainy day, so to speak. “A battery stores the excess energy that solar panels produce during the day so it can be used to power the home in the evening,” explains Bob Madonna, founder and CEO of Savant. “It can also provide emergency backup power during a grid outage such as the one the island recently experienced.”

Most of the time, panels are powering homes in fair weather. Sharp says his solar array has made a dent in his electricity bills, both for heating and cooling his home with two mini splits, and for his pool’s electric heat pump.



For Glidden, the opportunities for added value—and lower bills—seem endless. “We can install solar anywhere,” he says. “There’s no property that can’t have solar on Nantucket. It just shows that you can do it on affordable housing. You can do it for a hotel. You can do it on a roof right by the water, or you can do it on the ground. It’s a no-brainer.”