PLAINS — Former President Jimmy Carter’s advocacy for renewable energy is rooted in this tiny community, and on Wednesday those roots bore the fruit of a 1.3-megawatt solar energy station that will provide more than half of Plains’ power.
Along with wife Rosalynn, grandson Jason and representatives from SolAmerica and Georgia Power, Carter took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the newly operational solar farm in Plains.
A long-time advocate for renewable energy, Carter leased the 10-acre site in his hometown to solar energy company SolAmerica, which has developed the 1.3-megawatt station that is expected to provide more than 50 percent of the electricity for the city.
“Rosalynn and I are very pleased to be a part of SolAmerica’s exciting solar project in Plains,” said Carter in a press release about the project. “Distributed, clean energy generation is critical to meeting growing energy needs around the world while fighting the effects of climate change. I am encouraged by the tremendous progress that solar and other clean energy solutions have made in recent years and expect those trends to continue.”
Carter explained at the ceremony that because of his humble, agriculturally-rooted childhood, he saw the importance of renewable energy at an early age.
Expenditures on Renewable Energy in Carter Administration, and after
“I first became acquainted with renewable energy when I was 11 years old,” the former president said. “We lived in a home west of Plains, about two and a half miles. We didn’t have electricity in our house. We didn’t have running water in our house, and my daddy installed a windmill. We then had an indoor bathroom for the first time and a shower bath. My daddy punched holes in the bottom of a tin bucket. Water would pour in the bucket and dribble out on us, so that was our shower bath. That was a very great improvement in my life depending on energy from the sun for wind power.”
