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Green Acres is the place for me

I just heard yet another story in our local papers about a tragic death due to illegal electrical hook-ups the other day, and after thinking more about this I came up with a (somewhat off the wall) idea for how we might be able to solve this problem in the future.  For far too long now this has been an issue for both the desperate resident with no other means to pay their bill, and the electric utility who spends significant resources trying to find people who are taking for free what others are paying for.

When you get to the root cause of why people and businesses make energy decisions it always comes down to dollars and cents.  If people or companies can reduce their electrical consumption by installing more efficient systems, or by creating alternative energy generation (i.e. wind or solar), and the numbers make sense based on the amount they will save against the capital investment required, then the project will happen.  This is essentially the reason why we install energy efficient lighting systems in our warehouse buildings.  

In the same manner if a desperate resident can spend fifty dollars for an illegal hook up that allows them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of electricity then the project will likely still happen,

Now let’s fast forward to the year 2029…

The economic incentive of free electricity was put in place for areas of Detroit many years prior and now what exists is a booming community where all residents and businesses receive free electricity.

How did they do it?  To attract both residents and businesses to key areas of the city Detroit setup Free Electricity Zones (FEZ).  These zones took advantage of the abundant property the city had to create wind and solar farms which in turn feed electricity to the FEZ areas.  The utility company invests what they were spending on tracking down illegal hook-ups to build the wind and solar farms.  The result is an off the grid solution that is self sustaining. 

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that this idea is way out there, but you never know, this could be the next step to our area becoming the green capital of the world.