Midvalley resident Jim Duke recently bought two electric cars to handle part of his family’s daily transportation needs, and they invested in a significant-sized solar electric system to offset their household power consumption and to fuel the cars.
The Dukes installed an 11-kilowatt solar electric system last fall near their comfortable log cabin between El Jebel and Catherine. The system will produce about 15,000 kilowatt hours annually, which will offset most if not all the family’s power consumption and provide juice for the two cars. Fifty-six gleaming solar panels soak in the sun from a perch on a berm that deflects highway noise at the Duke’s cozy spread.
The Dukes are getting their money’s worth. Duke said they got rid of their gas stove and converted their gas boiler to an electric boiler for their household heat. That was a move designed to wean the family off carbon-producing uses they couldn’t offset — natural gas — to a power source they could offset. The DC power from the panels is fed to an inverter which changes it to AC power for the house.
“Power produced by the sun is used by the house first,” Haines said.
Any remaining power is fed into the grid. The Dukes are paid at the wholesale rate by Holy Cross for the power they contribute to the grid.
In addition to powering their house, the Dukes plug their cars into outlets scattered around their yard that are tied into the solar electric system. They bought two models of Miles Electric Vehicles, which are made in China and purchased at Berthod Motors in Glenwood Springs. The compact but comfy vehicles seat four, or in Jim’s case, usually him and the two dogs.
The family figures the electric vehicles are good for traveling the 3 miles to El Jebel for trips to the grocery store and other errands. The vehicles run about 30 miles per full charge. It takes between four and five hours for a full charge, at a price of about 25 cents or a little less than a penny per mile.
Duke also offers free plug-in service to any owner of an electric vehicle.
“It’s sort of an empty promise since there’s so few around,” he said. “It’s more of a challenge or just a way to draw attention to how cheap these cars are to drive.”
“I’m going to be going down with zero footprint when I go,” he said with a smile.
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