\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n…the solar-EV combo may just be too good for suburbanites to pass\r\nup — no matter their political ideology. Strikingly, the new\r\npaper estimates that for a household that buys an electric vehicle\r\nand also owns a solar panel system generating enough power for both\r\nthe home and the electric car, the monthly cost might be just $89\r\nper month — compared with $255 per month for a household\r\ndriving a regular car without any solar panels.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nI’m \r\nno fan of sprawl<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\nwhich has plenty of other problems ranging from watershed damage\r\nto excessive road rights of way to taxes spent on subsidizing developers\r\nthrough road and bridge building.\r\nBut at least solar panels plus electric vehicles would reduce some\r\nof the problems with existing suburbs.\r\n
\r\n\r\nThis dramatic savings becomes possible to contemplate, notes the\r\nstudy, due to the growing prevalence of $0 down payment options both\r\nfor installing solar panels, and for buying electric vehicles.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nBut that kind of option is exactly what\r\n\r\nthat 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>\r\nprohibits for Georgians.\r\n
\r\n\r\nElectric vehicles and solar panels keep getting better — and\r\ncheaper. Teslas have improved in range from the original 2008 Tesla\r\nRoadster, which could drive 245 miles without recharging, to the\r\nTesla Model S, which can travel 265 miles. And the researchers show\r\nthat for other plug-in hybrid or battery electric vehicles —\r\nthe Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius plug-in, Ford Focus Electric, and\r\nNissan Leaf — the trend is similar.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nFor each of these cars from 2011\/2012 through 2014, the paper shows,\r\nvehicle price declined even as for several models (Volt, Leaf) the\r\nmiles per gallon equivalent actually increased — and for the\r\nother two (Ford Focus Electric, Prius) it held constant. “These\r\nsuggestive results highlight the fact that the cost of ownership of\r\nelectric vehicles in the United States is falling,” note the\r\nauthors.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nFor solar power, meanwhile, the numbers are way more dramatic. The\r\nauthors cite a stunning figure from Clean Technica: From 1977 to\r\ntoday, the average cost of a solar panel declined from $ 76.67 per\r\nwatt to $ 0.613 per watt!\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAnd\r\n\r\nsolar and wind are already beating natural gas for new installed generation<\/a>.\r\n
\r\nThe article revisits financing, with the example of:\r\n
\r\n\r\nSolarCity allows you to pay for your solar installation from the\r\nmoney that the solar installation itself creates by generating\r\nenergy. That means that households don’t have to make any down\r\npayment, and don’t have to pay for the system’s maintenance. They\r\ncan just let the sun itself pay it off.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nBut that’s done through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA),\r\nwhich is exactly\r\n\r\nwhat that 1973 Georgia law doesn’t allow<\/a>.\r\nThere will be a bill in the legislature this year, like\r\n\r\nevery year since about 2000<\/a>.\r\nThis January is the time to pass it, now that\r\n\r\neven Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning owns a Tesla<\/a>.\r\n
\r\nPS: Owed to John Pate.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who would pass up cutting their monthly electric and transportation costs by 60%? Well, people in Georgia will get passed by unless we change an antique 1973 law. Chris Mooney wrote for Washington Post 24 December 2014, How solar power and electric cars could make suburban living awesome again, …the solar-EV combo may just be […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,18,20,6124,24],"tags":[8704,8701,8708,8702,8710,753,12,7,562,8714,108,6339,6],"class_list":["post-11903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-law","category-natural-gas-2","category-solar","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-legislature","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-tom-fanning","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-35Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11905,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11903\/revisions\/11905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}