Plug in. Point up. Power on.

In a lot of NWT communities, the power in your wall started out as diesel that came up the river on a barge, which makes it about the priciest electricity in the country. Just about everything up here arrives by barge or ice road. The sun doesn't.

It's pretty much what it sounds like. Small solar panels you plug into a regular wall outlet, like an appliance. You hang them on a balcony, a wall, or a railing, plug them in, and that's about it. Usually no electrician, no roof work, no permits. They quietly make power and send it straight into your home. Germany has more than a million of them. It's safe, it's proven, and it works everywhere it's allowed.

The good news is the territory is already rewriting the rules to let communities and Indigenous governments make more of their own power. The piece still missing is the small one, a clear, legal way for a single household to plug in a panel and burn a little less diesel. Colville Lake already runs on sun with the diesel switched off through the summer. Now let's make that something any household can do.

So we're asking NTPC and the territory, already mid-reform, to include the smallest systems too, a certified panel a household can plug in itself.