Day: May 10, 2014

Obama is officially the new Jimmy Carter of presidents

A solar panel array now adorns the roof of the White House and will produce an elephantine amount of solar power when the sun is actually shining: about 44 kilowatt hours of electricity a day. 

If 44 kilowatts hours sounds like a lot of energy, it isn’t. The average home consumes about 30 kilowatt hours (kWh) of power each day. The average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,837 kWh according to the EIA for 2012 or 30 kWh per day average.

Slightly less than the 44 kilowatt hours per day that will be produced by the new solar panels adorning the White House. According to data from TradeWind Energy, one 100-watt light bulb running for 20 hours will use two kilowatt-hours of electricity (100 watts x 20 hours = 2,000 watt-hours = 2 kWh).

In other words, the White House installed enough solar panels to power twenty-two 100-watt light bulbs for 20 hours each day. And if you’ve ever been inside the White House, or seen it from a distance, you’ll notice it’s lit up like a klieg light. Excerpted from Boston.com:

Citing security and other concerns, the White House won’t say how many panels now encase the top of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. or how much they cost. But the panels are expected to generate 6.3 kilowatts of solar power whenever the sun shines, the White House said, improving the building’s energy efficiency.

…snip…

The project required technicians to first drill down to the concrete on the White House roof, then use epoxy glue and threaded rods to install a gridded subassembly onto which the solar panels could be secured. The solar components, converters and the labor to install the panels were all domestic, the White House said, declining to name any of the companies involved in the project.

If the average American knew how much this cost the taxpayer, they’d realize this is not cost-effective at all. Which is specifically why the White House refuses to release the numbers.

Obama