Amish turn to solar power for electricity: They
draw a line in how they use it for work and in the home
Sep 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Fabian Loehe The Philadelphia
Inquirer
On the porch of a white Lancaster County farmhouse set between corn and soy
bean fields, an Amish woman makes apple sauce the old-fashioned way: She
crushes fruit in a manual press. Chickens run across the yard. A long line
of laundry dries in the sun.
But at her husband's dairy-equipment shop next door, the scene is quite
different. Energy-saving fluorescent bulbs light the basement. And wiring
has just been installed to run heavy machinery off the sun.
Despite their reclusion from the modern world, the plain-living Amish are
leading the way when it comes to embracing solar energy.
On rural back roads where plain-clothed Amish still drive their horse-drawn
buggies, small black-and-purple panels have sprung up on barns and houses.
They twinkle in the sun, charging batteries that once got their power from
diesel generators or gas-powered machines.
The Amish shun connections to the outside, including the power grid, to run
their buggy batteries, electric fences, refrigerators and sewing machines.
But within their religious framework, using the sun to charge their
batteries is acceptable, at least for some purposes, says Donald Kraybill,
an expert on the Amish at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist
Studies at Elizabethtown College.
"It's like tapping into God's grid instead," he said.
Ben Zook, 25, saw the light seven years ago, when he decided to sell solar
panels instead of making cabinets.
"I believed that I could make a living out of electricity," said Zook, who
was raised Amish. "But what I didn't imagine was that solar would become
almost a mainstream thing the world talks about.
"My total business doubled last year, mostly because of the Amish," said
Zook, who owns Belmont Solar in Gordonville, Lancaster County. "It's a
pretty rapid growth rate."
Elam Beiler has been selling solar products for 15 years, but said he saw
business jump by 30 percent in the last two.
"It becomes more popular with the way the fuel prices go," said Beiler,
owner of Advanced Solar Industries in Ronks.
Fed up with gas prices, non-Amish customers are also hungry for solar. Last
year, his business was 20 percent non-Amish. This year, it grew to 40
percent and he expects it will be 60 percent next year.
Another reason for the shift is that the Amish generally buy small systems,
costing $3,000 to 4,000, while a large package for non-Amish could cost up
to $500,000, he said.
Among those who are enthusiastically, though cautiously, turning to solar is
a Ronks hardware store owner who along with muckrakes, clotheslines, gas
lamps, push mowers and Kick Horse Feed Additive now sells solar-powered
garden lights and fence chargers.
"Some years ago, people frowned" at solar power. "But now they see it as a
necessity," said Esh, who asked that his first name not be used.
Esh for 15 years has used solar power to run his cash register and
key-cutting machine. This summer, he upgraded from four smaller to six
larger panels. His new paint-mixing machine, for one, needed a lot of
energy.
"It would be very expensive to run the diesel [generator] all day long. And
electricity prices are going to go through the roof in the next two years,"
he explained.
At his home among the bucolic green hills of Ronks, Esh's two buggy horses,
Prince and Razor, grazed by a neat barn whose roof is adorned with solar
cells connected to an energy converter in his garage.
A cord from the converter runs to a battery beneath the black buggy parked
there. Running off the battery are the carriage lights -- bright LED bulbs
-- charged enough for a night trip.
Esh's two daughters, schoolteachers, use solar power for copy machines at
home, he said.
"Where it has really changed is that homeowners have it now, too," he said.
While the Amish are more liberal about using electric power for work than in
their homes, the shift is causing gray areas to emerge.
"The Amish decide on whether to adapt to a new technology based on two
implications: their separation from the world and the impact on the
community," Kraybill said.
To protect their community from the influence of the outside world, the
Amish sometimes wait for a bishop-council meeting before installing special
solar equipment.
The Amish fear becoming too materialistic and worldly, which is why they do
not use solar to power batteries for iPods, TVs, laptops but do use them for
water pumps, washing machines, and battery-powered floor lamps.
"I could run a Game Boy on the same power I run the refrigerator," solar
vendor Beiler explained. "But it's hard to maintain your culture if you have
a TV. Then your kids are worshipping the latest rock star. Eventually, it
would erode our culture and ultimately destroy it."
Instead, his children -- three girls and three boys -- play hide-and-seek in
the garden or throw a ball around.
And as he stood in front of his buggy, with its LED lights, he said he had
no intention of getting a solar car someday.
"If we would introduce cars to our society, we would not have a community
for very long," he said. "It would rip our family apart."
Beiler recalls that once or twice, people in the community cautioned him
about the direction of his solar business. But so far the church has not
interfered. Beiler knows the line he is not willing to cross -- installing
electricity in his house. That could lead to excommunication, he said.
"That's definitively not something I would want," he said. "I am a firm
believer in our lifestyle. It's an idea that has worked for centuries, and I
don't see a reason to change that."
Contact staff writer Fabian Loehe at 215-854-5610 or
floehe@phillynews.com.
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