The RFP says
I asked Andrea Schruijer about those two dates just now on the telephone. She said they would look at any proposals they have received by the time of Thursday’s board meeting, but they would not vote on them then. Their March board meeting is scheduled for 20 March 2012, which is after the March 16th due date.The board will entertain proposals at the regularly scheduled meeting in February. Please email proposals to the following no later than 12:00 p.m. on March 16, 2012:
-jsq
Since I’m familiar with that location as the old closed pawn shop, I called VLCIA’s new PR person, Meghan Duke, for clarification.Notice: The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Regular Meeting has been rescheduled for the month of February. The meeting date will be Thursday, February 23, 2011, 2:00 P.M. at 101 N Ashley Street.
Notice of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Board Retreat, Thursday, February 23, 2012, 9:00 AM- 2:00 PM at 101 N Ashley Street.
I congratulated her on her recent appointment, and repeated what I’ve
been saying for some time now, that VLCIA does many good things most
people don’t know about and with some PR maybe we would.
She said she was working on educating the public.
About the meeting location, she told me Continue reading
While
opening a solar site in Richmond Hill last Friday, Dr. Sidney Smith said Georgia Power thinks it owns your sunshine:
It’s a personal freedom issue and a personal rights issue. And also it’s an issue of our future generations.But I know that we’re going to come out on top…. The reason we’re going to come out on top. You’re going to choose a higher power bill, or a lower power bill? Now, I know you’re going to say I want a lower power bill.
Here’s the video:
Does Georgia Power own the sunshine?
South Eastern Pathology Associates,
Selling Power, Lower Rates for Customers LLC (LRCLLC),
Richmond Hill, Bryan County, Georgia, 17 February 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
As Dr. Smith told the AP a few days later:
We have a property rights issue: Who owns the sunshine, and does a property owner get to do anything he wants with it?” Smith said. “Georgia Power says he can use it to grow grass, get a sunburn, but he’s not allowed to change it to electricity. That’s not correct.”
And it goes beyond just generating your own power for
lower rates for yourself as a customer.
Why not be able to sell it to somebody else who wants it, too?
This is just the first step. In a way and a process that we’re ultimately going to be able to sell power out of Bryan County back to Atlanta, bringing dollars back from Atlanta to Bryan County.And Lowndes County can do the same. Atlanta wants our water? Sell them sunshine instead!
SB 401 can help with that. If you want it to pass, you can sign the petition or call your state senator.
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Stephen Lacey wrote for Climate Progress 12 Feb 2012,
More than 68% of New European Electricity Capacity Came From Wind and Solar in 2011,
That’s almost a 10-fold increase over deployment in 2000, when only 3.5 GW of renewable energy projects were installed. Last year, 32 GW of renewables — mostly wind and solar — were deployed across European countries.If Europe can change its energy strategy that quickly, so can we.
-jsq
PS: Owed to William House.
While Georgia Power
invokes forty-year-old territoriality laws
to try to prevent you from selling or buying solar power with
whomever you want to,
Drs. Sidney Smith and Pat Godbey continue to open new solar power
installations, this time in Richmond Hill, Georgia last Friday.
Dr. Sidney Smith said the new installation lowers the customer’s electricity rate and doesn’t raise it for two years.
The emailed invitation:Lower Rates for Customers LLC celebrates the second installation of selling power to South Eastern Pathology Associates at 1pm Friday February 17th at the Georgia Skin and Cancer Clinic located at 9665 Ford Avenue Richmond Hill, Georgia 31324.Join us to celebrate the expansion of our company in Bryan County as we lower the power bills for another customer. We will continue to lower our customers electric bills by 1% and fix their rates for two years. We look forward to seeing you. Dr. Sidney Smith and Dr. Pat Godbey |
I don’t think Georgia Power is going to offer that rate, are they? No, I don’t think so.But that’s just the start.
What we’re doing though is we’re creating a system where this communicates with software. What our real goal is is to go to south Georgia farmersHe gave an example.and say put solar panels on your property, and we’ll connect those to the grid. Sell power through the grid, and we’ll give credit to somebody else in the state who wants it.
If you live in Atlanta, you don’t have any property to put solar panels on, do you? I think there’s are a lot of people in Atlanta who would like to rent some property right now, don’t you think?Georgia Power opposes SB 401, which is the bill Dr. Smith was referring to.How about if you could actually, out in the county, have an income that would last forever? That would be an investment that you could make today, that a generation in the future would be able to take advantage of. And the possibility of that happening is real.
The only thing that stands between that happening, and our future being very different, is legislation. They’re actually passing some bills now, that solidify the fact that I can put this on this property.
Georgia Power right now…
If you want SB 401 to pass, you can sign the petition or call your state senator.
Here’s the video: Continue reading
Errin Haines wrote for AP 18 Feb 2012, Georgia Power balks at Senate solar power proposal,
“The power company ought to be doing this, but they don’t want to buy it from anybody that produces it,” said state Sen. Buddy Carter, the bill’s main sponsor.Ah, the old territoriality law! “Competing” through assigned territories. Does that seem right to you?The state’s main electricity provider, Georgia Power, is opposing the legislation, pointing to the state’s Electric Service Act.
Created nearly four decades ago, the law established assigned territories for the power company, along with 42 electric membership cooperatives and 52 cities with municipal systems, all competing for customers.
Spokeswoman Christy Ihrig said in a statement that the proposed bill would illegally infringe on the company’s territory and that the introduction of a new supplier could drive up rates for customers because utilities would be required to hike costs. She added the company is supportive of solar power and is working to provide solar as an option to customers.
You know, it’s not illegal if the legislature changes the law….
If you want lower rates for customers, call your state senator today. Around here, that would be Senator Tim Golden, tim.golden@senate.ga.gov
121-A State Capitol
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The latest update (20 February 2012) is online for the
community calendar
produced by
Jane F. Osborn
who organizes the
Valdosta Civic Roundtable.
She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.
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Zaid Jilani wrote for Republic Report 15 February 2012, Minnesota Governor Calls Out Corporate Front Group ALEC, Vetoes Its Bills
It has grown so powerful that it now has nearly one-third of all state legislators under its umbrella.Here’s video: Continue readingALEC has worked with legislators to pass bills ranging from issues as diverse as stripping unionized workers of their rights to making it harder for low-income citizens to vote. It is usually able to do so because it hands its corporate-written template bills to state legislators and gets them passed without any public scrutiny as to the origin of this legislation.
Late last week, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D)
decided that corporate front groups like ALEC should not be able to write his state’s laws. Dayton decided to veto a series of “tort reform” bills that would’ve restricted the rights of citizens to sue to hold big corporations responsible. In a press conference discussing his vetoes, Dayton condemned ALEC for providing the templates for the bills. “I’ve found that Minnesotans do not want their laws written by the lobbyists of big corporations,” said Dayton.
PURPOSE AND DIRECTION OF TODAYS PROGRAM: To keep citizens informed;Here’s video:help eliminate the deaf; dumb; and blind process in our beloved community. For too long local radio has failed to have open disucssion about the real issues that too often are not published and excluded from our history.
This is an honest attempt to keep alive what others may not believe to be of value to us; or coming generations that will look for a real and true history of what took place today. So I hope this will be carried on by others in our beloved community for the good of all human beings.
Welcome back, George!
-jsq
PS: Other people may call him crazy; I call him dedicated.
Did you know?
Federal mandates require that 25% of Air Force facility energy use comes from renewable energy sources by 2025 and Moody will help….It’s a shame we have to go to Binghamton and Ithaca, New York, to get the equipment. You’d think we could build solar thermal hot water heaters right here in sunny south Georgia, and install them, too. The architect, however, was local. Congratulations to Moody AFB and Slone Associates for installing solar hot water!
The installer, Intelligent Green Solutions (IGS) of Ithaca, New York,
has the details:
The installation is a large solar thermal system that includes:The completion target date was end of December.
- 20 TitanPowerPlus 2.0 Flat Plate Solar Collectors
- 512 Gallon Solar Hot Water Storage Tanks
SunMaxx Solar press release of 29 Jan 2012, SunMaxx Solar and Intelligent Green Solutions Install Solar Thermal System at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, Continue reading