BERKELEY — A group of homeless people are pioneering what they say is a sustainable, if minimalist, 21st century camp model in this often trendsetting city by installing solar panels to charge cellphones and computers, power a few nighttime reading lights, and otherwise stay globally tuned.

Sam Clune has hooked up donated solar panels at three homeless camps, starting with one along Shellmound Street just north of the Emeryville border at the edge of Aquatic Park where he has lived with his dog, Trouble, since his last forced move. That happened on Nov. 4, when BART evicted him and his mates from the “HERE/THERE” camp alongside the BART tracks on Adeline Street about a half-mile south of the Ashby station.

Next, Clune hooked up solar panels at two other camps newly established by erstwhile HERE/THERE residents in the aftermath of the Nov. 4 eviction: the “First They Came For The Homeless” camp in front of Old City Hall; and the relocated, smaller HERE/THERE camp a few dozen feet north of the old one.

“It allows you to charge your phone and your computer,” Clune said of the 915-watt setup at Aquatic Park, consisting of three solar panels, a controller, four golf cart batteries and lots of wiring — “Here every tent has an extension cord running to it,” he said.

“The big difference is not what you can do with electricity. It’s what you do not have to do,” Clune said. “Instead of sitting in a coffee shop for three hours a day charging stuff, building your whole day around it, we can now accomplish something else with our day.”

Over at the Adeline Street camp, resident Karma Bear seconded Clune’s observation:

“Instead of going to the library, where there are 90 homeless people trying to charge their phones at one time, we can charge up as many as we need here, up to 10 or 12 a day,” Bear said.

The Adeline Street camp’s single 305-watt panel charges two truck batteries.

At the Old City Hall, which only sees about three or four hours a day of direct sunlight, it takes eight small panels, bolted together to make three large ones, to put out 860 watts, enough to charge just two golf cart batteries, Clune said. The Adeline and Aquatic Park camps gets much more direct sunlight.

All told, the three camps have a total output of 2,080 watts and serve as many as 40 people, Clune said. There is even enough power to run a 12-volt iceless cooler at the Aquatic Park camp.

“In the summer, when there’s more sun, we’ll be able to charge the electric wheelchair” of one of the residents, Clune said, adding, “We’ll have to rewire to 24 volts instead of 12. Not a big deal.”

Alas, there is nowhere near enough power to run heaters, he said.

A former mortgage broker, Clune, 43, lost his home in Albany, New York, in 2009. He moved, eventually ending up in Oakland, living in a recreational vehicle outfitted with solar panels — that is where he acquired his solar technology skills, he said.

“It’s a wonderful way to produce electricity. You don’t have to buy gasoline,” Clune said. Moreover, he said, gas-powered generators frequently break down, and their 2-cycle engines are noisy and heavily pollute the air.

He lost his RV in May 2016, when its registration and smog test certification expired, and police in Alameda towed it away, “with all my life’s possessions inside,” he said.

Clune dreams of moving to somewhere affordable, maybe Peru. In the meantime, he said, “I would love to electrify the entire homeless population of … everywhere.”