Hot take: found out my city's new solar farm won't even cover 5% of our power needs

I was digging through the city council meeting notes from last month in Austin, and I stumbled on the actual output numbers for that big solar project they've been hyping on the news. Turns out the whole 50-acre array is only projected to generate enough for about 3,000 homes, while we have over 900,000 households here. I had to read it three times because I thought I was misreading the spreadsheet. My neighbor told me he was excited about it cutting his electric bill, but now I feel like we're being sold a shiny distraction. Has anyone else looked up the real numbers on these local renewable projects and found they barely make a dent?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_riley22d ago

Yeah, "shiny distraction" is the perfect way to put it. I feel like these projects are more about making people feel good than actually solving the problem. 3,000 out of 900,000 homes is basically a rounding error, not a solution. It's like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. But nobody wants to talk about the real changes we'd need, like actually reducing how much power we use. It's just easier to hype up a solar farm and call it a day.

janac5922d agoMost Upvoted

Reducing power use won't do much when half the grid still runs on coal.