Energy Ideas to Reduce the Carbon Footprint in Belding

Belding's inhabitants pay an average residential electricity rate of 17.42 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is 1.73% greater than the average state rate of 17.12 cents, and 29.5% more than the US average of 13.4 cents. This is because the town and its citizens use a lot of unneeded energy.

Using 8,103.64 Megawatt-hours a year Belding's energy consumption is right in the middle of the road based on its size.

What Belding is Already Doing

Hydro Power

A very interesting thing about Belding is that there is a river running straight through town, so an easy thing to do would also be to expand the hydropower that the town already has. The Belding dam was updated in the late 80s just for the use of hydroelectricity so the town can just convert new or nearby housing complexes to hydropower, increasing the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint of the city once more.

Ways we can Improve Even More

Solar Panels

Add solar grids to improve green power to the houses all over Belding, with a cost of maintenance per year extremely minimal due to the quality of the solar panels.

Initial Cost:
$50,000
per house

LED Street Lamps

Replace regular street lamps with LED ones with no cost of maintenance because the bulbs last 15 years on average

Initial Cost:
$2
per bulb

Electric Car Chargers

Add car charging stations at major places in Belding with a cost of maintenance of 400$ per year per charger.

Initial Cost:
$15,500
per 5 chargers

The Impact these Changes Will Have

The impact of these changes would be great. Adding solar panels with the hydro power Belding already makes can lead to major cutbacks in the energy we get from burning fossil fuels.

LED street lamps can cause a huge impact due to the fact that they cost less to operate, use 75% less energy and they are safer to drivers because they are brighter than regular lamps. Plus they can be solar powered which lowers their outside energy usage to none.

Car chargers will create a positive change in Belding and the hope would be to spark a switch to electric cars. These charging stations can be the gateway along with they can be solar powered meaning they can be completely carbon emission-free using only clean safe energy from the sun.