When you drive through the back roads of Vermont, the landscapes tell a story. Tidy rows of crops, rolling green hills, sugar shacks leaning in the wind, proud barns with sun-faded red paint. This is a place that takes aesthetics seriously — not in a showy way, but in a quiet, deliberate one. Vermonters care how things look, because how things look reflects how they’re cared for.
And then you turn a corner and see it: a field of solar panels surrounded by a chain link fence.
There it is — the future, wrapped in steel and topped with barbed wire. It’s not just the fence. It’s the gravel access road. The utility box that’s been bolted to a concrete pad like it was dropped in by helicopter. The “No Trespassing” and “Danger: High Voltage” signs that glare from every angle. It’s solar, yes, but it’s not of the place. And that’s a problem.
We need solar that belongs
Don’t get us wrong: we love solar. Kingdom Sun’s mission is to build the solar-powered future. But if we’re going to build a renewable future that actually takes root, we need to be thinking about more than kilowatts and ROI. We need to think about fit.
Here in Vermont, we care how things are built. Our barns aren’t just functional; they’re heirlooms. Our fences don’t just keep the cows in; they frame the land like a picture. When we add something new — a porch, a woodshed, a sugarhouse — we ask, how will this age? Will it still belong here in fifty years?
But many solar installations, particularly utility-scale or ground-mounted ones, answer a different set of questions: How fast can we get it up? How cheap can we build it? What’s the minimum needed to pass inspection?
We get why that’s the default — solar has to compete with fossil fuels on cost. But here’s the thing: if we want solar to thrive in places like Vermont, it has to do more than deliver kilowatt-hours. It has to earn its place in the landscape.
So why are we building our solar arrays like we’re fencing off an environmental disaster?
Designing for place
It doesn’t have to be this way. Solar can be stunning. It can be integrated into timber-framed sheds. It can be sited in a meadow of native wildflowers that attract pollinators. Modern bifacial panels — like the ones we use in our Kingdom Sunport — allow enough light to pass through that grass can grow beneath them, providing grazing for sheep. Solar can be surrounded by a split-rail fence or a stand of berry bushes. It can be inviting.
At Kingdom Sun, we build solar that looks like it belongs here. We think solar can (and should) be part of the Vermont vernacular — at home among the fieldstone walls, timber frames, and covered bridges.
There’s a better way
We designed the Kingdom Sunport with all of this in mind — a solar carport made from native Vermont timber, built to last for generations, and priced to compete with the kind of metal-rack ground mount we’ve come to expect. It generates electricity, yes. But it also provides shelter. It adds beauty. It gives solar a seat at the architectural table.
We believe this is where solar needs to go, and not just in Vermont. Solar shouldn’t look like something we’re afraid of. It should look like something we’re proud to pass down. Because once the dust settles, the solar that stays will be the solar that fits. The installations that are loved, not just tolerated; that add to the view, not detract from it.
At Kingdom Sun, we’re building for that future. And we’re leaving the chain link and barbed wire behind.