Last month Ken Baker asked me about solar powered homes in Knoxville and, sadly, there just wasn't a lot I could tell him.
Well, it looks like interest in solar power has picked up some in our area, at least for one KUB customer, Preston Smith, who recently installed 28 solar panels on his barn. According to an article in the KNS, his "solar system" is the largest in the KUB service territory and cost a whopping $50,000.
I'm sure normal, meaning much smaller, residential installations would be cheaper, but I'm thinking that the prices are still going to give a lot of people in our area sticker shock. I would also think this is the type of improvement you would only do to a home you planned to stay in a long time, as I'm not sure you could get your installation costs back dollar for dollar when you sold it.
Any thoughts on this? Would you pay more (probably a lot more) per square foot for a solar powered home?
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
More on Solar Power in Knoxville
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1 comments:
I would pay a premium for the solar, but I would need to view electric bills showing the benefits that it had on the utilities.
One of the main reason that you do not see much solar in this area of the country, is that unlike the more progressive and forward looking areas, there have been no incentives put in place for sustainable generation at a personal level.
In the TVA watershed, the utility environment is such that the utility companies have zero reason to get their customers to save energy. Local utilities are not responsible for producing energy, TVA is. TVA can not by law sell directly to consumers. So the local utilites buy from TVA, then make their profits from selling to the consumer, and their profits go up when you buy more. Therefore they don't want you to conserve energy and make it as difficult as possible to do so, as that is bad for their business.
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