{"id":332,"date":"2014-11-12T20:33:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T02:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/?p=332"},"modified":"2017-06-13T20:45:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T02:45:38","slug":"solar-energy-at-the-memphis-agricenter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Solar Energy at the Memphis Agricenter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u00a0like cheap stuff and do-it-yourself stuff.\u00a0 I wish that there were a way to generate my own electricity.\u00a0 I’ve looked into it for years.\u00a0 The answer is always the same.<\/p>\n

I got to thinking about the solar farm at the Agricenter this evening.\u00a0 I drive by it occasionally while traveling out Walnut Grove.\u00a0 It is one big honker.<\/p>\n

I decided to run the numbers on that boondoggle and see what they looked like.\u00a0 I got the data (and the above photo) here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The farm was supposed to generate 1.6 gigawatt-hours per year.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether it is meeting that goal, I don’t know, but it seems very unlikely that the goal was understated, so let’s assume it’s reliable.\u00a0 Basic arithmetic converts that into 1,600,000 KWH.\u00a0 Residential rates for electricity vary somewhat, but $0.07\/KWH is pretty close, so multiplying that by the farm’s output yields $112,000 worth of juice per year.\u00a0 And that’s the retail price.<\/p>\n

The farm cost $4,300,000.\u00a0 Dividing that by its annual output, it would take over thirty eight years to reach the break-even point.\u00a0 Of course, a solar farm doesn’t operate itself.\u00a0 You must pay maintenance people, some of whom must be technically astute and, therefore, expensive.\u00a0 One salary might run $50,000 when you include benefits, Social Security, and so forth.\u00a0 Can they maintain that farm completely by hiring one person and no outside contractors?\u00a0 Is the equipment insured against hailstorms, tornados, and flying beer bottles?\u00a0 Just what are the annual maintenance costs?\u00a0 Might be approaching $112,000, depending on how you figure it.<\/p>\n

Will it last thirty eight years?\u00a0 Oh, be serious!\u00a0 Warranties on these panels tend to be twenty to twenty five years, but even with that, their electrical output diminishes with age, which shifts the numbers into even more unfavorable territory.\u00a0 Additionally, the Agricenter is proud to point out that their panels slowly rotate in order to be always facing the sun, which improves their output twenty percent!\u00a0 How much power is consumed moving 4,160 solar panels throughout every sunny day?\u00a0 And how long will the motors last which accomplish this nifty feat?<\/p>\n

This nonsense is built and owned by an outfit called Silicon Ranch, the principal of which is former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen.\u00a0 You might think that poor Phil isnt good at arithmetic, spending $4.3 million on something that is guaranteed to lose money.\u00a0 But I assure you, his arithmetic skills are doing just fine.\u00a0 First, he sells the electricity to MLGW at market rates.\u00a0 Next, he gets a handout from the TVA (your wallet, in other words) amounting to $0.12\/KWH.\u00a0 Thats $192,000\/year, in case you don’t have a calculator handy.\u00a0 Last, he will sell the junk to the Agricenter in ten years.<\/p>\n

Is this a great country, or what?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0like cheap stuff and do-it-yourself stuff.\u00a0 I wish that there were a way to generate my own electricity.\u00a0 I’ve looked into it for years.\u00a0 The answer is always the same. I got to thinking about the solar farm at the Agricenter this evening.\u00a0 I drive by it occasionally while traveling out Walnut Grove.\u00a0 It is … Continue reading “Solar Energy at the Memphis Agricenter”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45dxY-5m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}