Taylor Clark | KFVS 12
CARBONDALE, IL (KFVS) – New bills part of the Clean Energy Jobs Act are in the process of getting in front of Illinois legislators. The goal being to make Illinois run exclusively on renewable energy resources by 2050.
If passed, an estimated 40 million solar panels and 2,500 wind turbines would be installed, adding an estimated $30 billion to Illinois infrastructure according to the release.
At the announcement this morning at John A Logan College, multiple leaders and advocates for the act met with members of the public. One of them was Reverend Karen Knodt, from First Christian Church in Carbondale, who recently had 84 panels installed on their roof in August.
“17,431 pounds of climate warming carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere,” she said on the emissions they haven’t created since installation. “I open the Ameren bill right away when it comes. The First month that was dramatic. We went from $695 to $295.”
Al Parr is in charge of everything to do with the panels at their church, who also took early note of how much a difference these panels made in their energy use.
“Average energy use for the building in 2017 was 120 kilowatt hours a day,” he said. “And there were some days in August where we were producing 180 kilowatt hours a day.”
info@ilcleanjobs.org