ASHER — Elijah and Guylaine Collett don't buy arguments that solar power won't work in coal-hungry, cloudy, shady Eastern Kentucky, and they have the electric bill to prove it.
They say they live on $6,000 to $7,000 a year, from Elijah's disability check and Guylaine's industriousness as a house cleaner, ginseng harvester, strawberry farmer and thrifty flea-market shopper. In the ten years since Guylaine moved from Toronto to a hollow in Leslie County — for love after she met Elijah online — the couple has built an array of 51 solar panels on the south-facing hill above their humble mobile home.
The solar-charged battery bank runs almost every electric appliance in the couple's house, except for the 240-volt stove, heat pump and well pump. This weekend the Colletts will be sharing tips and tricks at a free Growing Appalachia conference at Jenny Wiley State Park in Floyd County.
"You have to build it slowly," Guylaine said as she described the $200 to $500 panels. The array was expensive, and the cost of the panels is rising, but it has paid off.
Guylaine Collett trades power bills with her neighbors at the post office, she said. The neighbors pay between $300 and $600 a month. This month, the Colletts owed Kentucky Power $51.
"For me it is a necessity," she said.
Elijah Collett, who broke his back and had to stop working as an electrical contractor, gets fired up when he talks amps and voltage, transformers and diodes. He takes every opportunity to preach the benefits of solar power to his neighbors, and film crews and journalists, who visit to see his work. One of his dreams is to meet Wendell Berry, the Kentucky writer and activist he has seen on KET.
But he really gets going when he quotes Revelation 11:18, the King James Version: "... that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth."
"Destroy them which destroy the earth," Elijah repeats, raising his voice and emphasizing "earth."
The Colletts cater to each other. Elijah, 51, does all the research on the Internet, the welding and design work. He hates that Guylaine has to lift anything heavy, but he's proud of the way she can. (She's only about 5 feet tall but used to be a nurse's assistant and could move a 200-pound man, he crows.) He says he would be dead if she hadn't come to him and helped him through three back surgeries.
In between feeding her baby goats and watching visiting grandkids play hide-and-seek, she shows off the cinderblock and wood platforms she built to hold the solar panels, and explains that some work even when clouds cover the sun. She says Elijah knows what everything is called, and he tells her how to put it together.
Elijah says he's not exactly against coal, except for mountaintop mining. But he is a little baffled that someone wouldn't want to cut their bills the way he has. He and his wife smile at each other knowingly. They know how the simple life works.
