Former President Jimmy Carter Leases 10-Acre Site For Solar Farm

Earlier this year, in February, Jimmy Carter launched a solar farm big enough to power over 50%  of his hometown of Plains, Georgia. The former president initiated the project by leasing 10 acres of land to SolAmerica, an Atlanta based solar development and construction firm.  A long time solar supporter, he commented on 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 has always been a strong advocate for renewable energy, having installed 32 solar panels during his presidency in 1979 whose purpose was to heat up water using the sun’s energy. At the time he stated, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Additionally, in June of this year, the Carter family also had 324 solar panels installed on the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta. These are going to provide about 7% of the library’s power.

The solar farm in Plains, GA was a big and ambitious project for a single person to initiate, but it’s important that influential figures such as Jimmy Carter take an active stance on these issues. In a political climate that cannot seem to agree on the importance of renewable energy, we need more public figures supporting any kind of practice that will help fight climate change.