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This problem came to the fore in 2020 when, for two days, California’s three big energy companies instituted rolling blackouts across the state because the grid could not meet demand. Prices are high, in part, because the size of the state increases transmission costs, as do wildfires on mismanaged public lands that have knocked out critical infrastructure, requiring replacement.īut the biggest contributor to high prices is the state’s push to adopt wind and solar, which require big upfront investments but nonetheless necessitate a reliable backup for when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing. Gas is more expensive there, too, in large part because of penalizing policies, but researchers predict electricity prices can only rise in the golden state, thanks to a host of factors. ( 23.11 cents per kilowatt-hour, as of June 2021).
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That’s an even more pertinent question in California, where energy prices are the highest in the continental US. Reflecting on how much longer the same work now takes him, Jimi Layne of Mountain Brook’s crew asked, “Are we looking at dollars and cents?” ‘Expensive and Unreliable, Please’ He has outfitted the company’s vans with solar panels for recharging batteries on the go-each van costing about $100,000. Given the numbers above, though, it would take a lot of lawns to make up one’s initial investment with only a 10 or 20 percent upcharge. He says, “There are people who don’t care and say, ‘I just don’t want the noise.’” All power to them. Chris Regis, owner of Florida-based lawn care company Suntek, is able to charge customers between 10 and 20 percent more for all-electric lawn care. Some landscapers make electric work, and not just those whose equipment is paid for by taxpayers, as in Mountain Brook. That’s if you run it in “normal” mode, which is half the power of Husqavarna’s $459 gas blower boost mode saps the power faster and is about 33 percent less powerful than the gas blower. The one the associate recommended, though, costs $969 (yes, more than double the cost of the blower) and “lasts up to 3.5 hours,” he told me. The lowest-priced option will cost landscapers an extra $300 and lasts between thirty and sixty minutes. After lots of web searching about the battery, I gave up and contacted support. I searched Husqavarna’s site high and low for battery run time info for its 550iBTX, which one landscaper reviewed as “The best electric blower on the market.” For $469? Not bad, I thought. The biggest holdouts are those who do landscaping for a living, and for good reason. But, although lots of people are making the switch of their own accord, they’re not doing it fast enough, according to California’s legislative assembly. The city has spent $18,000 over the last year outfitting its public works crew with electric trimmers, blowers, and more.Īccording to Stanley Black & Decker, sales of the company’s electric yard equipment jumped 75 percent between 20. The bellow of leaf blowers disturbed his tennis game with a friend who, as chance would have it, had previously complained about the town’s noisy equipment.
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That’s what prompted Mayor Stewart Welch of Mountain Brook, Alabama to begin switching his town’s tools over to electric. Many make the switch because, although lower-powered and less reliable (do batteries ever die at the right time?), battery-powered equipment is less noisy. Since then, though, more than half of homeowners in the state have swapped out their consumer-grade equipment for “zero emission equipment” (ZEE), meaning, battery-powered weed whackers, leaf blowers, hedge clippers, chainsaws, and even lawn mowers. Politicians tried and failed to do the same in 2003. The state, committed to net-zero emissions by 2045, is moving to ban sales of gas-powered landscaping equipment as early as 2024. “But let’s knock $20 off your fee? What are we up to now, 25 cents a kilowatt-hour?” Mind if I plug in?” You look from the immobile machine to your half-cut lawn.