If there is any part of the country that people might agree could benefit from environmentally friendly sources of energy, it would likely be the U.S.'s numerous and renowned national parks. The National Park Service is responsible for nearly 400 parks across the country, from Hot Springs Park in Arkansas with little more than 5,500 acres to Wrengell - St. Elias Preserve in Alaska, spanning more than 13,000 square miles.
In 1999, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado was helping federal agencies improve their energy profiles with its Federal Energy Management Program. When Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma decided that it needed to upgrade its recreation facilities with hot water, NPS mechanical engineer Mark Golnar went to the NREL with solar in mind.
Golnar was certainly familiar with the poor reputation the technology had earned after the end of the first solar incentives in the 1980s, and many parks still had non-functional solar panels installed on some buildings. The FEMP, however, was designed to take into account the costs of energy improvements over the entire course of their lifetime, as well as the hypothetical cost of emissions. When Golnar and the NREL looked over the potential costs and the long-term benefits of a solar installation for the park's water heaters, the advantages seemed obvious.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Oklahoma boasted the 10th lowest electricity costs in the country in 1999 at 5.37 cents per kilowatt-hour. Even with these low prices and access to electricity already in place, the costs of electric water heaters and the electricity to power them proved prohibitive. Since then, the EIA reports the state has improved to the seventh cheapest electricity rates, but actual costs have risen more than 50 percent, reaching 8.31 cents per kilowatt-hour in February.
Three different comfort stations in the park were planning to add hot water for showers and sinks, one larger and two smaller. The larger solar installation cost as much as $24,000, while each of the smaller ones ran the park $18,000. The smaller systems came to around 200 square feet each, while the larger one was nearly 500 square feet. Particularly with the technology of the time, neither of these systems would produce much electricity, but because solar water heaters only need to transfer heat rather than transform it, the smaller systems were able to reach 45 percent efficiency and the larger one as much as 34 percent.
Between all three, these systems are able to produce nearly 37,000 kilowatt-hours of thermal energy. Even without a backup, the comfort stations' water dropped below 95 degrees Fahrenheit for only between 345 and 579 hours. The two types of systems could produce as much as 660 and 1,500 gallons of hot water each day.
At the time, the NREL estimated that Chickasaw would see annual returns of as much as 6.2 percent for the smaller systems and 6.6 percent for the larger one. By those estimates, the systems should have paid for themselves by 2009 at the absolute latest, but obviously electricity prices have only continued to climb. At the current average rates, the park could be earning itself more than $3,000 per year above and beyond what it paid for its solar installation.
Meanwhile, in terms of environmental impact, by using solar power rather than grid-based electricity, the park is projected to be saving an average of 42 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, 237 pounds of sulfur dioxide emissions and 289 pounds of nitrogen oxide emissions.
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If there is any part of the country that people might agree could benefit from environmentally friendly sources of energy, it would likely be the U.S.'s numerous and renowned national parks. The 
