Overheard at the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall Sunday, the event's last day: "I almost can't wait. Can you imagine how great it would be to never go to a gas station again? Never pay an electric bill? Never have a power outage?"
This is the business that energy companies are in. A business that everybody hopes will go away.
That's not the way with most businesses. I mean, shoes, for instance: You don't hear most of us going around wishing never to have to find a cool pair of shoes again. Or fantasizing about building our own sofas.
It's no wonder electric utilities spend a lot of time ingratiating themselves to us.
Heaven knows, if everybody installed the solar energy systems on display at the decathlon, the utility system's business model would indeed have a problem. Since it will take who knows how long for that to happen, the issue is a long way off. How long is long? It's hard to say.
The thousands who visited the decathlon over recent days are proof that the idea of making our own energy is hotter than ever. In the bleak cold and rain on Saturday, the Team Boston house, for example, had its highest number of visitors in a day, 3,000. Veterans of world's fairs, however, might remember the sights we saw there that purported to presage our future: jet packs for personal travel, for example; dry-cleaning closets we would simply hang our clothes in overnight.
Not that super-efficient and renewably powered homes are fantasies, but even as the technology advances and gets more affordable, it's good to be reminded of the no-free-lunch rule.
While some houses at the decathlon cost less than $300,000 (Rice University's was under $250,000), the winner, Germany, spent something like $900,000 to build its champion house, depending on whose account you're hearing. Costs would be lower if they were mass-produced, the Department of Energy notes. Whenever that happens. And these houses were only 800 square feet, max. Many aimed at being as present-time realistic as possible. Still, we will see.
Indeed, the people want to be free of their grid ties. It is only a matter of time. Not if but when. The technology is all there, all that is lacking is time, sufficient motivation, or the right implementation. Utilities have long fought this, true. The smart ones will realize the fundamental change afoot and remodel themselves to help us, not hinder us.