a. First we look at the last two digits of a sunny number. There are nine possibilities for these: 01, 12, 23, 34, 45, 56, 67, 78, and 89. If we then look at twice a sunny number, we get the following nine possibilities, respectively, for the last two digits: 02, 24, 46, 68, 90, 12, 34, 56, and 78. We see that twice a number can only be sunny if the original sunny number ends in 56, 67, 78, or 89. In all four cases we see that by doubling a 1 carries over to the hundreds.
Now we look at the first two digits of a sunny number. The nine possibilities are 10, 21, 32, 43, 54, 65, 76, 87, and 98. If the first digit is 5 or higher, twice the number has more than four digits so it can never be sunny. The possibilities 10, 21, 32, and 43 are left. After doubling and adding the carried over 1 to the hundreds we get, respectively, 21, 43, 65, and 87. In all cases twice a sunny number is a sunny number if the first digits of the original sunny number are 10, 21, 32, or 43 and the last two digits are 56, 67, 78, or 89. In total there are 4⋅4=16 combinations to be made, hence 16 sunny numbers for which twice the number is again sunny. □
b. Denote by a and b the two middle digits of a sunny number. Then the two digits on the outside are a+1 and b+1, so the number is 1000(a+1)+100a+10b+(b+1)=1100a+11b+1001. This number is divisible by 11 because 100a as well as 11b as well as 1001=91⋅11 is divisible by 11. After division by 11 we get the number 100a+b+91. Now b is at most 8, because b+1 has to be a digit as well. Furthermore a is at least 1, because the number we started with has to be at least 2000. So we see that 100a+b+91=100a+10⋅9+(b+1) is the three-digit number with digits a, 9, and b+1, a three-digit number with a 9 in the middle. □