This village in the Oslo ski area is the first of its kind, where every unit has between 8 – 25 … [+] solar panels imageserve
When his friends discovered he was going to buy a primarily solar-powered house in the ski area outside Oslo, Onar Aanestad’s friends laughed. Now the laugh is on them; from March or April onwards, Aanestad pays no energy bills. Instead, he sells electricity back to the grid over the long Norwegian summer days.
I am standing with Aanestad on an overcast day by a small football pitch in the village of Furumogrenda. Until a few years ago, this was a forest. “It’s a little different here from most new developments,” Aanestad says. “The village community is built around all the adults and children having their own space.”
Everyone has their own house. Dotted around the village are four playgrounds, ponds for children of all ages, and a shallow beach for…