Benvenuto nel Poliverso

Cory Doctorow

1 settimana fa • •

Cory Doctorow
1 settimana fa • •

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: The enshittification of solar (and how to stop it); and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/09/23/our…

#Pluralistic

A rooftop solar installation. Behind the roof rages a blazing forest fire. Reflected in the solar panels is the poop emoji from the cover of my book 'Enshittification,' which has angry eyebrows and a black, grawlix-filled bar across its mouth."

Image:
Bastique (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Panels_on_Church_Roof_full.jpg

CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

Pluralistic: The enshittification of solar (and how to stop it) (23 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

#Pluralistic

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DJ Sexy Fresh

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

"No DEI for fossil fuels" is some next-level political judo

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Jason Wehmhoener

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

the technical complexity of high voltage electrician licensing and also permitting are significant challenges for solarpunk in my mind. There’s a lot we can DIY but once we interconnect with the grid things get complicated.

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Cory Doctorow

in reply to Jason Wehmhoener • 1 settimana fa • •

@jasonw22 Several chapters about this (and which safety codes get it right worldwide, and can be transposed to local codes) in Macarthur winner Saul Griffith's brilliant book "Electrify:

pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/pra…

Pluralistic: 09 Dec 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

@Jason Wehmhoener

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Jason Wehmhoener

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

thanks, I’ll check it out!

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary

in reply to Jason Wehmhoener • 1 settimana fa • •

@jasonw22 As I understand it, the basic problem with the power grid is that it's designed for top-down, imperialistic control of power. For a proper future, it needs to not just have battery stations bolted on, but to be refactored to be far more decentralized.

@Jason Wehmhoener

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Cory Doctorow

in reply to Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary • 1 settimana fa • •

@pteryx @jasonw22 Addressed in detail in McKibben's book - lots of this is underway in e.g. China but also e.g. Pakistan (so not just rich, high-tech societies). There's also the massive difference that balcony solar panels and batteries have made in Germany - you just hang them up, plug your fridge into them and no grid retrofits are required. Takes a HUGE bite out of energy consumption.

@Jason Wehmhoener @Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary

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Micke vK

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Lots of good stuff here! I think you skip over one thing though to make a (still valid) point:

Even if the current owners shift their bets, someone will own the oil in the ground. These owners will have both an economic interest in slowing down clean tech and financial muscles for a long time. Big Oil is less of an economic boss fight, more of a decades long game where every time you beat a level they retreat into their cheaper, more competitive wells.

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Led By Fools

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

While my experience pales in the scale to your (as usual, amazing) article, I experienced #solar #enshittification firsthand:

My installer bolted a third party #Sunpower charging monitor to my house, which worked great to see what my hourly/daily/yearly output was until Sunpower went bankrupt and was bought out by Enphase, who, you guessed it, wants me to pay a subscription fee to see the same monitoring data. Fuck that.

Fortunately, (#Reddit to the rescue): The data from the microinverters goes through my router, and someone found a hack:
github.com/krbaker/hass-sunpow…

reddit.com/r/SunPower/comments…

All I need to do is implement the hack and I get my data back, then reconfigure the router to cut off Enphase! Its like #UnauthorizedBread but for solar.

GitHub - krbaker/hass-sunpower: Home Assistant SunPower Integration using the local installer ethernet interface.

Home Assistant SunPower Integration using the local installer ethernet interface. - krbaker/hass-sunpower

^GitHub

#reddit #solar #enshittification #unauthorizedbread #sunpower

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Peter_Panther

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

About agri-bussiness and food read "ultraprocessed people" by Chris van Tulleken, eye opening.

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Cavyherd

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Was just listening to this podcast interview with McKibben & that was a thought that kept crossing my mind: "How long is it going to be until the rentiers find their way in between the producers & the users...?"
#Solar #Renewables
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/…

Photons ☀️, Fogies 👴🏼, and Energy Liberation, with Bill McKibben

Podcast Episode · WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? · 09/12/2025 · 46m

^{Apple Podcasts}

#renewables #solar

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sleepy62🍁🛠️ 🖥️ 🔬 🌞

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Spot on essay. When we installed #Solar a couple of years ago I was appalled that I was required to ensure a continuous internet connection for the Solar Edge inverter lest I void my warranty. Enphase was pretty much the same.

The only way around this is to build your own system from other non-enshitified components. I could probably do that today but I did not have the knowledege back then.

"Big Solar" has also corralled most of the larger installation firms across the region so its difficult not to use them.

#enshitification

#solar #enshitification

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fractal_timescales

in reply to sleepy62🍁🛠️ 🖥️ 🔬 🌞 • 1 settimana fa • •

@sleepy62 my wife and I don't own a home yet, but when we do we want to make solar a priority. Are there any resources you would recommend looking at to try to gain the knowledge to do this ourselves? I'm not sure I'd be able to, but I'd like to know for sure before I have to put my future in these crap ass companies' hands.

@sleepy62🍁🛠️ 🖥️ 🔬 🌞

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sleepy62🍁🛠️ 🖥️ 🔬 🌞

in reply to fractal_timescales • 1 settimana fa • •

@fractal_timescales
This forum is quite good, decent people, good advice:

diysolarforum.com/

Also, understanding the three basic architectures is important:

1) String Inverter
2) Micro Inverter (Enphase & others)
3) Optimizer (Solar Edge)

Good luck!

DIY Solar Power Forum

Love building DIY solar electric projects? Come hang out :D

^{DIY Solar Power Forum}

@fractal_timescales

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b00g13

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

While impossible for me, a renter in UK, to utilize solar power for myself, I have researched the topic a lot. Dug in to the practicalities, costs and installation. But I've never seen any internet enabled options! Yes, I have seen how to enable Home Assistant, how to combine smart meters, essentially how to integrate in to existing automation or homelab, but this sounds ridiculous! Why would I want to have my entire home powered by IOT? My battery accessed by some other people? No, never. What an absolutely stupid idea.
It does make me think, tho. Is it me not knowing something important about? Because solar seems to be pretty easy to mount yourself, and the most unique parts of it, the panels, batteries, controllers and inverters are widely available in generic, offline options. Where does the ability to choke it comes? Is there a monopoly on some part of that chain that makes it possible?

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Cory Doctorow

in reply to b00g13 • 1 settimana fa • •

@b00g13 in most countries, inverters are internet connected in order to do grid coordination.

@b00g13

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b00g13

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

that's the key, I was specifically ignoring the grid connection

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GhostOnTheHalfShell

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

We have so many people with degrees in electrical engineering etc. I would like to see an open source blueprint for inverters and that kind of thing because I don’t think they are very complicated from memory.

But there’s another angle to some of this, there are a lot of of devices that don’t need to run on AC. The first thing that happens is the AC current is converted to DC to run things internally.

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Den of Earth

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

For another clear hint that #enshittification has already begun to affect EVs, look no further than the charging station conundrum.

Wanna buy gas? You're good with cash, credit, bank card, Apple pay, you name it.

Wanna charge your EV? Welcome to any number of mutually incompatible charging networks, each requiring you create an account and pre-load it with funds, load the app on your phone, order a card in the mail...

Who do you wanna bet is behind this turnpike cluster fuck?

#enshittification

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Richard Hector

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 1 settimana fa • •

Good stuff, but I don't see the point of lacing it with obscenities. There's a whole bunch of people I won't share it with because of that (same with John Oliver).

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Cory Doctorow

in reply to Richard Hector • 1 settimana fa • •

@richardh Lucky for you it's CC licensed so you can edit it and republish it and even charge money for it - just link to the original and the license and note that you have modified it.

@Richard Hector

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Pollinators

in reply to Cory Doctorow • 6 giorni fa • •

Thank you for helping solar power get to people. As you share, the fossil fuel and technology sectors are trying to add choke points to solar power systems. #solar, #solarpunk, #offgridsolar, #balconysolar, #growyourown,#solarpower, #solarpanels

#solarpunk #solar #SolarPower #GrowYourOwn #solarpanels #balconysolar #offgridsolar

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