A few comments here have been along the lines "how can you make good stories without conflicts," which I think is missing what makes something "solarpunk" rathe

A few comments here have been along the lines "how can you make good stories without conflicts," which I think is missing what makes something "solarpunk" rather than just "utopian". Obviously, there's a lot of ways you can express this, but I'm going to use the words of the linked manifesto, judiciously edited to focus on how you bring stories out of it: What does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there? Solarpunk is concerned with the struggles en route to a better world. The "punk" in solarpunk is about rebellion, counterculture, post-capitalism, decolonialism, and enthusiasm. It is about going in a different direction than the mainstream, which is increasingly going in a scary direction. [The solarpunk] future must involve repurposing and creating new things from what we already have. A solarpunk story isn't about how nice utopia is once it's achieved. If anything, what makes it punk is the recognition that if you want utopia, you are going to have to fight like hell to get as close as possible, that a "true" utopia is by definition impossible, and that "as close to utopia as we can get" isn't a finish line you get to cross over and bask in for eternity. Staying there is going to take work. And the solarpunk idea of utopia even as described in my little snippet -- let alone the whole linked manifesto -- is certainly not universally shared. There will be people who will fight, very hard, to keep that particular vision of utopia from happening. And that, you can definitely build a story around.