Reminds me of the added benefits of putting solar panels in elementary schools too-- engage the kids about it, teach them, and see what community benefits might come down the line. This is really neat, though. Feels like some fun apocalyptic or steampunk vision where we still have PV tech but need to use rudimentary tools to make it work!

If you want to do a an art project using PV, great, make it small and put it in a city park where everyone can see it.

If you want to do a jobs program, fund it with taxes, not electricity sales (as that disproportionately effects the poor).  And I bet there are more beneficial make-work programs than taking something we already build and making it more expensive (the WPA left behind a lot of great parks, bridges, stadiums, etc).

I for one, have an idealogical preference for long-lived infrastructure.  Maintenance always costs much more than initial production.

So many feel-good solar projects fail in the longterm. Remember what happened when Elon Musk tried to save Puerto Rico with his pannels? I don't buy the whole community engadgement piece. People don't want to think about power. They just want it to work.