A few years ago I was talking almost Daily to two figures from Florida’s past. My Grandfather Walt Young who was a member of the Florida House of Representatives for twenty years and was the first person in the state to introduce Solar legislation (He was so proud of this fact) and Former Governor Wayne Mixson. Mixson, now a Republican, was a democratic statewide officeholder during the 1970s and would often mock the sense of urgency the Carter White House had towards Energy independence.
“They would claim we would need to invest in Clean Air and Solar!” he would say with a laugh and then make some mild insult about Climate Change.
Both he and my Grandfather worked closely with the Carter White House and its efforts to get States like Florida involved in promoting Solar Power for ordinary Household use. While Mixson clearly didn’t value the lectures and presentations he was privileged to take part in, my granddad did.
He would always consider it as a wasted opportunity, and if you look at Carter’s speech when he placed Solar Panels on the Roof of the White House, so does he.
As a new home owner and as someone raised with Solar Panels on my house as a Kid, I’m really interested in the costs of fitting my home with panels.
This article by the Solar Power Authority is the best article I’ve found on the subject. Written by Travis McKnight, it states —
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The rule of thumb is that the average U.S. household consumes electricity at the rate of one kilowatt per hour (kWh). There are about 730 hours in each month, and the national average price of a kWh of electricity is $0.10. So an average monthly bill would be around $73 for 730 kWh of electricity.
The average electricity bill can vary considerably if you have non-standard items, such as a hot tub, or some electrical appliances running continuously. Extended computer use, plasma screen TVs and video games consoles can also make an impact. Your usage will also increase significantly in months when you run an air conditioning unit or heater. Finally, the cost of electricity varies widely across the USA, from as low as $0.07/kWh in West Virginia to as much as $0.24/kWh in Hawaii. To get a precise estimate, you’ll want to adjust our calculations to fit your electricity usage patterns.
A conservative value to use as a solar panel’s generating capacity is 10 watts/sq. ft. This value represents a panel conversion efficiency of about 12 percent, which is typical. This means that for every kW you generate, you need about 100 sq. ft. of solar panels. If the sun shone 24 hours a day, you could put up 100 sq. ft. of panels and have enough energy to power the average home.”
Here is the link from the Solar Power authority on costs for installment www.solarpowerauthority.com/…
Interesting Side note, while Ronald Reagan did remove the Panels atop the Executive Mansion, Obama placed new ones during his second term. Plus Carter a few years ago created his own solar panel farm outside of Plains Georgia. While he didn’t create the Solar revolution he had hoped, he is still doing his part. Producing enough clean energy to power half of his own hometown.
As for me, I’m looking at energy loans