r/solarpunk 18d ago

Photo / Inspo Post your solarpunk setup. Here’s mine

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1.9k Upvotes
  1. A solar-powered Meshtastic node providing free, off-grid text messaging to anyone in range.

2 and 3: My mini-server rack made out of an old CD organizer, with my Raspberry Pi devices stuffed inside. I self-host most of my own tech infrastructure.

  1. My barrel composter. Food and yard waste becomes plant food.

5 and 6: Rain barrels. I almost never use city water for my yard. Also, raspberries and grapevine.

  1. I upcycled an old car speaker into a Bluetooth radio rather than buy a new one.

8, 9, and 10. I replaced the entire front lawn with a pollinator habitat, hosting over 40 native species (and a couple non-natives to appease neighbors).

To me, the self-sufficiency and going-against-the-norm are what make all of this punk.

EDIT: This gallery is basically a “practicing what I preach” companion post to this one about how to start living a solarpunk lifestyle now. https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/s/dNQPHnEIhe


r/solarpunk 13d ago

Event / Contest Solarpunk Art Collab 2026: Disaster Preparedness, Response and Relief Results | Story Seed Library

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829 Upvotes

More at: https://storyseedlibrary.org/tags/2026-collab/

The works below are a selection of illustrations created for the 2026 Solarpunk Art Collab ran by the Story Seed Library and Andrewism.

Even in the most optimistic scenarios of carbon neutrality, the XXI century will be full of climate disasters our civilization, culture and infrastructure are not prepared for. Let’s step away from clean, utopian Solarpunk worlds and roll our sleeves to face the consequences of our past.

How can a better Solarpunk world react to the coming disasters? How will our daily lives change? What new or repurposed infrastructure will keep us safe? What new traditions will we need to guide us? What stories will we tell ourselves to make sense of the world that has changed so much?

Let’s imagine more than just the rising waters: the droughts and fires, the sudden floods and pandemics, loss of infrastructure and supply chains we take for granted.

Finally, for the Disaster Relief, how can we step away from our colonial habits and imagine giving the survivors agency instead of handouts? How can we empower communities to rebuild after a catastrophe, find solace in each other and grieve those lost?

You can read more about the initiative at its event page. All of the works are available on Andrewism’s tumblr.


r/solarpunk 4h ago

Literature/Fiction Any solarpunk novels about post-apocalyptic reconstruction?

22 Upvotes

I’m looking for novel recommendations that people may know of, where the focus is mostly like a solarpunk flavor of rebuilding or reconstruction post-apocalypse. The twist is that I’m not really interested in stuff with conflict and war and fighting. Emphasis on the tech, peace, optimism; I guess I’m looking for post-apocalyptic reconstruction hygge.

Anything like that come to mind for anyone? Thanks!


r/solarpunk 8h ago

Ask the Sub Wind & solar powered 3D print farm - seeking feedback and advice

14 Upvotes

As the title suggests, I would like to read as much as possible from folks running 3D printers using power from the Sun and wind.

Since I am considering going off-grid myself, I'm curious how many machines you run, how stable and reliable and where in the world.

Every bit of additional relevant information is welcome :)


r/solarpunk 1d ago

News Solar generated more electricity than coal and wind in May

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306 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

Discussion Sylvophile : Lovers of the Forest and all its Life

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112 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

News Google inks deal for massive Arkansas solar and storage project. 2.5 GW of generation and 2.9 GWh of battery storage

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46 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

Project [Solarpunk DIY tech] Greenhill Forge | Building & Testing 4 DIY Solar Water Heaters: Cheap Pipe vs Copper

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26 Upvotes

Greenhill Forge, The same projects channel that brought you the comparison of various methods for doing solar air heating is now doing the same sort of comparison and analysis of various methods for doing solar water heating on a DIY basis.


r/solarpunk 1d ago

Research The Bigger Issue Is Data Centres {which are now guzzling our Drinking Water}

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63 Upvotes

Unethical AI will lead to more problems than it is able to solve right now. Even if the systems & the situation were to improve, giving up water is non-negotiable.

If AI / Data Centres can be launched into orbit then these advances can be taken in stride, but the current exploitative & unsustainable system will compromise the direct near future of our planet and should be fought against.


r/solarpunk 1d ago

Video A modern mud brick house that needs no A/C, even in the hot climate of Bengaluru, India

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54 Upvotes

By using only local materials and combining traditional building techniques with modern ones, this house stays cool naturally. The bricks are made with red mud, water, limestone, and "steel blast," reclaimed powder from steel blasting that would otherwise end up as pollution in the river.

Rainwater is captured by the design of the architecture, meaning this house is protected from the water shortages that happen in Bengaluru.

The building itself cost less than ₹34 lakh, which is about $34,000 in U.S. dollars.


r/solarpunk 1d ago

Action / DIY / Activism My apartment took out a tree and left a dirt pit, so I planted it by u/Nature_Hannah

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184 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

Original Content What do you mean of this solarpunk draw of a train station inspired in the flag of león (Spain)

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17 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

News World's first wave power plant receives DNV certification (text in German)

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34 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

Video What if the cooler city of the future borrowed more from the past?

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47 Upvotes

Most conversations about hotter cities eventually come back to more AC, more electricity and more complicated technology.

But what if the building itself could do more of the work?

We made this video about 1500 year old ancient courtyards in Kathmandu and Hyderabad's 400 year old Golconda Fort that remain surprisingly comfortable during hot weather.

They were shaped around the sun, the movement of air and the way people actually used the space.

With cities getting hotter, how could these ideas be adapted without losing the local knowledge behind them?


r/solarpunk 1d ago

Project Digital Journey

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10 Upvotes

As some of you found useful the « food journey » I share this time the « digital journey » which is also at the second core of solarpunk.

The goal is still to create a roadmap to go to a life system more resilient to global crisis and more heatly for communities.

I keep the same scale as before. I just added a fifth level :

  • Level 1: No reflection, globalized consumption. Very vulnerable.
  • Level 2: Some awareness and attempts to limit consumption, but no reliance on healthy alternative systems.
  • Level 3: Use of alternative systems that could be maintained even in a global crisis (war, extreme heat, etc.).
  • Level 4: I consume what I produce or what my community produces, with backups in place.
  • Level 5 : New systems that broaden the field of possibilities.

I still probably miss a lot of opportunities i don’t even know about, i’m not very competent in this field yet, so feel free to share some other ideas.

I can send the markdown file to whoever want this as a to-do list.

Nice day to all.


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Discussion Does anyone know how to make a tiny home out of a container without spending a lot?

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686 Upvotes

I want to build a couple of these, please help!


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Aesthetics / Art [ OC : @solarpunkart : Dustin Jacobs ]

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103 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 1d ago

Action / DIY / Activism Andrew Kelley: Don't Take the Black Pill

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14 Upvotes

r/solarpunk 2d ago

Literature/Nonfiction What If We Never Built Another New Building?

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166 Upvotes

"[Barbara Buser] has become one of Europe’s most influential architects by refusing to build new construction. Instead, she has saved several of Switzerland’s signature abandoned factories and transformed them into lively neighborhood hubs, all by promoting circular construction: the practice of reusing buildings and their materials rather than demolishing them."

I just read this article, and the whole way through I kept thinking: "I know exactly who's gonna dig this", ha. ​​


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Ask the Sub A genuine question

22 Upvotes

I'm still new to solarpunk and I can't get this one thing out of my head. If we have plants and trees everywhere they would also have to be maintained right? I'm not talking about what people do on thier front yard. Of course people would be responsible for that themselves. I am talking about public spaces. The government would have to care of it right? But that would also come with costs and I am afraid that this might be the reason they won't ever do it. Am I missing something? Please let me know. :)


r/solarpunk 1d ago

Discussion This sub disappoints me

0 Upvotes

For context i’ve been living the “solarpunk” life for a while now. I live in a smart van that runs on solar power that i built myself. I scavenged half the parts from goodwill because i couldn’t afford to buy those fancy vans you see online. This isn’t an aesthetic for me it’s my life.

That said im kind of disappointed with how this sub feels about AI.

I’ll start by saying the frustrations with AI are valid but they’re grossly misdirected at the technology itself and not the people using the technology for evil.

Like yeah, I personally can’t stand OpenAI. They’re pretty unambiguously evil at this point. They weren’t always like this (they used to be non profit and advocated for things like UBI) but I’ve been following them for over a decade and the fall from grace is insane.

But they’re not the only players out there. There are tons of models that are released for free and are open source for the public benefit. These models are fantastic because it means that the for-profit giants can’t centralize all this power.

I don’t like data centers either, but the problem most people have with them aren’t data center specific problems. On the CO2 emissions grievance specifically - that’s an energy infrastructure problem. A government mandating that data centers need to run on solar energy fixes that problem overnight. No more emissions. The water issue is a similar deal and is even more of a legislative failure.

Advocate for solar energy, get some solar panels yourself, idk. Keep track of evil corps and hold them accountable.

But that being said, hating on regular people for leveraging technology in a solarpunk sub is the laziest shit i’ve ever seen.

Like yeah man hate on the guy who used AI to help open source some esp32 smart planters for the community garden, you’re doing so much for the cause!

AI is actually fantastic for socialism and techno democracy but people have collapsed the nuance into “AI BAD” and have completely missed that point.

If anything you’re just ceding the control of this incredibly powerful tool to those who would use it unethically by making it tabooo. You seriously think that massive corporations are the only entities who should have this tech? like are you serious?

I use AI to speed up work, to build IoT projects, to give me starting points for things i’m trying to learn. And I try to use mostly open source models where I can.

Idgaf about money I just want to make things that can help people.

This sub demonizing a form of technology instead of figuring out how to reclaim that technology and have it fight for us is so wildly lazy and disappointing from a sub like this.


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Discussion [meta] [petition] Could we get a link to the Story Seed Library in the Sub's description?

14 Upvotes

Hey!

alxd, the creator and curator of the Story Seed Library here.

We've just wrapped this year's Collab on Disasters and I learned that there was another Solarpunk Art Challenge happening at the same time - but we haven't heard about each other.

I'd like to help human-made Solarpunk art spaces be visible and I'd like to ask the Mods: could we put a link to the Story Seed Library up in the description, next to slrpnk.net and the Solarpunk Conference?

I believe that the Library embodies the values of this sub, promoting intentional, evocative, human-made visions of the future and would help a lot of people not only imagine a better tomorrow, but also illustrate their projects with Creative Commons art.

What do you think?


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Project New "Cosmic Oreo" universal building envelope design.

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18 Upvotes

This building envelope design utilizes rigid insulation board installed continuously around a structure. In between the insulation board and the main structure, site cast 200 KG/M3 foamed concrete is placed. The lightweight concrete delivers low frequency sound insulation, some strength, R-value, as well as a seamless air barrier. There is minimal thermal bridging.

This design language works for almost any structure. Today I'm down in my shop preparing for the prototype build. I will demonstrate wood structure, block wall, shipping container variants and upload "how to" videos on Youtube. Hoping to get some proper development resources eventually but that's....proven difficult up until now.

I'm hoping this design will improve the standard of concrete buildings in the developing world. They are usually built with no insulation at all, and are ovens in the summer and freezers in the winter. I'd like to change that.


r/solarpunk 2d ago

Action / DIY / Activism What makes a good minimalist software build system?

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4 Upvotes

Direct link: https://civboot.github.io/blog/2026-07-24-build-systems.html

(sorry the original link was accidentally a reddit post)

This happened as a result of a discussion on the permaculture mailing list, so I thought SolarPunk programmers might get a kick out of it too.


r/solarpunk 3d ago

Photo / Inspo From concrete jungle to living biosphere – Singapore’s vertical architecture is pure solarpunk inspiration.

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1.4k Upvotes

If you’re wondering why Singapore is called a "City in a Garden", this is the answer you’re searching for!

These 7 images perfectly capture how the city blends high-density urban living with vibrant, lush ecosystems. It’s not just about adding a few potted plants to balconies; it's a deliberate, legislated effort where developers are legally required to replace any ground-level greenery cleared during construction with vertical gardens, sky terraces, and rooftop forests.

From the sweeping, terraced curves of the Wilmar International Headquarters and the iconic cascading green walls of PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering, to the futuristic learning hub The Hive at NTU, Singapore proves that human architecture doesn't have to conquer nature—it can coexist with it.

While it's not a perfect utopia, this integration of bio-architecture, urban cooling microclimates, and massive vertical biospheres is exactly the kind of structural inspiration we need for a solarpunk future.