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.
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