For Cynthia Cantero, putting solar panels atop her Oahu, Hawaii, home seemed like a no-brainer. In a state where most electricity is generated by burning pricey imported oil and where electricity rates are three times the U.S. average, she considered making her own power "a godsend."

Then her state's dominant utility pulled the plug on Cantero, and pushed the 54-year-old cancer patient and mother of five toward bankruptcy.

Read more about Cantero's all-too-common plight, and a nationwide campaign to derail home-grown solar energy in favor of utility-scale renewables, in my latest Sierra Magazine article, Throwing Shade.

(Sierra Magazine illustration by Thomas James)