Solar Energy From An Unlikely Source: The Amish

On the porch of a white Lancaster County farmhouse in Pennsylvania set between corn and soy bean fields, an Amish woman makes apple sauce the old-fashioned way: She crushes them 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.

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