Category Archives: CWIP

What Georgia Power is afraid of: GaSU and Dr. Smith; and you

So what is Georgia Power afraid of

that made their CEO Paul Bowers double down on old-style baseload?
Competition, that’s what!
What could be more scary in the power-monopoly state of the

1973 Territorial Electric Service Act?


GaSU sun
On one side, Georgia Power faces

GaSU and its 80 or 90 MW solar plant proposal.
Walter C. Jones wrote for OnlineAthens 24 September 2012,

Proposed solar company could stir up Georgia’s utility structure,

A proposal from a start-up business promises to lower electricity
rates by rebating profits to customers if given a chance to compete
as Georgia Power Co.’s “mirror image.”


GaSU fb profile image
To proceed with its long-range plan of developing 2 gigawatts of
solar power, the start-up, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., wants to
start by building an 80-megawatt “solar farm” near
Milledgeville as soon as it gets a green light from the Georgia
Public Service Commission. GaSU filed its request last week, and as
of Monday, it’s still too fresh for public evaluation.

So radical is the proposal that spokespersons for Georgia Power and
the Georgia Solar Energy Association said they still were evaluating
it and could not comment.

Groups that normally advocate for customers also are staying quiet.

GaSU executives recognize such a big change won’t come easily.

Continue reading →

Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years

Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear,
coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years.
What’s he scared of?

Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday,

Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,


Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers in Georgia Trend, November 2011
“Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,”
Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be
2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive
that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an
intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of
the time.”

One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is
air conditioning, which is why

Roger Duncan of Austin Energy in 2003

Austin Energy flipped in one year
from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop
rebate program in the country.
Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost
about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.
And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,
which
left millions without power in the U.S. in June
and

hundreds of millions without power in India in July.

Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted;
as recently as

November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,

Continue reading →

Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool


The

failed EDF nuke project at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland
makes it clearer why Southern Company (SO) was the first company
to get a nuclear permit in 30 years:
it was the only one big enough and monopolistic enough to pull it off.
Even then it’s such a

bet-the-farm risk
that even

“great, big company”
SO only dared
to deploy its

“great big huge scale“ equipment
with the regulatory capture triple-whammy
of
a stealth tax on Georgia Power bills,
PSC approval of cost overruns,
and
an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee:





  1. a legislated
    stealth tax in the form of

    a rate hike on Georgia Power customers     for
    power they won’t get for years if ever.
    If you’re a Georgia Power customer,
    look on your bill for Nuclear Construct Cost Recovery Rider.
    You’ll find it adds about 5% on top of your Current Service Subtotal.
    Georgia is one of only a handful of states where such a
    Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge is legal

    thanks to our regulatory-captured legislature.
    Doubling down on bad energy bets,
    Southern Company is also

    trying to use CWIP to build a coal plant in Mississippi.



  2. A captive Public Service Commission that

    rubber-stamps costs     for Plant Vogtle.
    In case there was any doubt as to the PSC’s role in legitimizing those new nukes,
    the very next day Fitch reaffirmed Southern Company’s bond ratings.

    Southern Company’s regulated utility subsidiaries derive predictable
    cash flows from low-risk utility businesses, enjoy relatively
    favorable regulatory framework in their service territories, and
    exhibit limited commodity price risks due to the ability to recover
    fuel and purchased power through separate cost trackers.

    Translation: Georgia Power customers subsidize SO’s bonds
    and SO shareholders’ stock dividends.
    The PSC also approved
    cost overruns being
    passed on to Georgia Power customers,
    and those nukes are already over

    $400 or $900 million    , depending on who you ask.
    What do you expect when

    4 out of 5 Public Service Commissioners
    apparently took 70% of their campaign contributions from utilities
    they regulate or their employees or their law firms,
    and the fifth commissioner took about 20% from such sources?
    Hm, there’s an election going on right now!




  3. An

    $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee.
    Even that’s not good enough for SO and Georgia Power: SO is
    asking for less down payment.

And what if even one of that three-legged regulatory capture stool’s legs
went away?

Continue reading →

Southern Company: let’s do the renewable energy study for Georgia

Mark Z. Jacobson's study shows

offshore wind is plentiful from Virginia to Maine
Let's

do the study for Georgia!
Southern Company

brags about its private R&D:

Research & Development (since the 1960s)


  • Awarded more than $1.3 billion to conduct more than $3.8 billion of research and development.
  • Qualified for $412 million of investment tax credits for a 21st century coal plant being built in Mississippi.

OK, SO, let's see you do the study to show what we can really do with



conservation, efficiency, wind, sun, and less natural gas than we have now.
Sure, in the Georgia Bight we do have to contend with hurricanes.
But a

"great, big company"
like SO should be able to focus its vaunted private R&D on that problem and solve it.

Maybe SO doesn't want to do that because the result might show there is no need for
any coal plants, nor new natural gas plants, nor any nuclear plants, which would mean
Georgia Power would have to give up its nuclear-funding rate-hike stealth tax
and SO would have to give up its $8.3 billion loan guarantee.
Hey, we might even need to

change the 1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act,
and that might damage Georgia Power's guaranteed profit!
Nevermind that Georgia Power and SO might make more profit if they got out
in front on solar and wind power and a smart grid.

If SO won't do it, how about we elect some Public Service Commissioners and legislators who will?
For

jobs, energy independence, and profit, oh, and clean air and plenty of water!

-jsq

All U.S. east coast electricity could come from offshore wind 3 seasons out of 4

Why build nukes when wind can provide 3/4 of our power?
While Southern Company claims to be

“a company that is engaged in offering solutions, not just rhetoric”,
yet

does nothing about wind off the Georgia coast,


researchers in far California have demonstrated we can get
3/4 of all needed east coast electricity from offshore wind.

Bjorn Carey wrote for Stanford Report 14 September 2012,

Offshore wind energy could power entire U.S. East Coast, Stanford scientists say

A new analysis by Stanford researchers reveals that there is enough
offshore wind along the U.S. East Coast to meet the electricity
demands of at least one-third of the country.



The scientists paid special attention to the Maine-to-Virginia
corridor; the historical lack of strong hurricanes in the region
makes it a favorable site for offshore wind turbines. They found
that turbines placed there could satisfy the peak-time power needs
of these states for three seasons of the year (summer is the
exception).

“We knew there was a lot of wind out there, but this is the first
actual quantification of the total resource and the time of day that
the resource peaks,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and
environmental engineering at Stanford who directed the research.
“This provides practical information to wind farm developers about
the best areas to place turbines.”



Mark Z. Jacobson already worked out a framework for

powering the entire world from wind, water, and sun alone.
The late
John Blackburn, Ph.D., showed us how

to power North Carolina with sun, wind, and hydro,
plus less natural gas than NC uses now.
Now Jacobson is working out the details of implementation.

-jsq



PS: Owed to Seth Gunning.

Change the Atomic Energy Act? How about change the Georgia Electric Territorial Act?

In reaction to

the NRC denying a nuclear permit for Calvert Cliffs,


some nuclear backers suggest

changing the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to permit majority foreign ownership
of nuclear reactors.
What will they suggest next?
Asking Iran to invest in U.S. nukes?

Steve Skutnik wrote for http://theenergycollective.com 5 September 2012,

A cost-free way to open up nuclear investment,

If this seems entirely backward in a world of global production and
investment, that’s because it is. The current regulation is an


artifact of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which first authorized
private ownership of nuclear facilities. (Prior to this—per
the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, all nuclear technology was considered
a state secret, during the short time in which the U.S. enjoyed a
monopoly on the technology.)

Is there any real compelling reason for restrictions on foreign
ownership and investment in nuclear facilities to exist at a time
when the U.S. holding a monopoly on the technology has long since
passed? Issues of safety here of course are irrelevant—the
facilities would be licensed and regulated by the NRC, just as any
other nuclear facility is now. About the only salient objection is
the political one—i.e., the implications of a foreign entity
maintaining controlling ownership in key infrastructure. (Although
it’s hard to see anyone getting particularly upset about the
reverse—U.S. entities owning a controlling stake in
infrastructure in other nations.)

Yeah, sure, strict regulation
will deal with that, just like it prevents fracking from setting
drinking water on fire, or BP from poisoning the Gulf.
The new NRC head is

maybe well-meaning,
but it’s the same NRC

that gave Vogtle 1 a clean bill just before it had to shut down
and the same NRC that’s ignoring

cancer in Shell Bluff.

Oh, by the way, the article gets to the main point eventually:

Continue reading →

NRC rejects nuke permit for EDF in Maryland

French nuclear operator Électricité de France (EDF)



was denied a license last week for the proposed Calvert Cliffs
nuclear reactor in Maryland, because the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 prohibits majority foreign ownership
of nuclear plants.
EDF now has 60 days to find a U.S. partner, or give up the project.
Who could the possible suitors be?
Hint: think southeast.

The handwriting was on the wall two years ago when
Constellation Energy pulled out of the project.
Jim Polson and Alan Katz wrote for Bloomberg 10 October 2010,

Constellation Drops Nuclear Plant, Denting EDF’s U.S. Plans,

Constellation Energy Group Inc. pulled out of negotiations on a $7.5


billion loan guarantee to build a nuclear reactor in Maryland with
Electricite de France SA, potentially damaging the French utility’s
U.S. expansion plans and the companies’ partnership.

The cost of the U.S. government loan guarantee that the companies’
joint venture, UniStar Nuclear Energy, would need to build the
Calvert Cliffs 3 reactor is too high and creates too much risk for
Constellation, the Baltimore-based utility said in a statement
yesterday. The statement said the next step is up to EDF. Enlarge
image U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman

In a letter Oct. 8 to Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S.
Department of Energy, Constellation said it received a government
estimate that the venture would have to pay about $880 million to
the U.S. Treasury for the loan guarantee, “dramatically out of
line with both our own independent assessments and of what the
figure should reasonably be.”

Constellation’s decision may make it more likely that the U.S.
utility will exercise a put option forcing EDF to buy as much as $2
billion of Constellation’s non-nuclear power plants, said Ingo
Becker, head of utilities sector research at Kepler Capital Markets.

“EDF very clearly said if they exercise the put, this thing is
over,” Becker said. “Constellation may have just turned
around the calendar and pulled out of the new build before
exercising the put, anticipating EDF’s reaction.”

In a letter Oct. 8 to Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S.
Department of Energy, Constellation said it received a government
estimate that the venture would have to pay about $880 million to
the U.S. Treasury for the loan guarantee, “dramatically out of
line with both our own independent assessments and of what the
figure should reasonably be.”

Meanwhile, Southern Company

is still trying to reduce what it has to pay for its
$8.3 billion federal loan guarantee.

Back in Maryland, the news got worse for the nuke last year.
EDF

asked for the state’s help,
but didn’t get the answer it wanted.
Scott Dance wrote for Baltimore Business Journal 16 December 2011,

EDF: Constellation-Exelon settlement hurts Maryland nuclear industry,

Continue reading →

Where would Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. get enough land for 80 MW solar generation?


Plant Branch in Georgia
Where will
Georgia Solar Utilities Inc.
get

the 2,200 acres it says it needs to build 80 MW of solar generation?
Well, it’s supposed to be “adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.”, so let’s look there.


Plant Branch Location Map
A

brochure on Plant Branch by Georgia Power
(undated, but last date mentioned is 1998, so I’m guessing 1999)
says:

Located on 1,900 acres on Lake Sinclair in Putnam County between
Eatonton and Milledgeville, Plant Branch was the first
million-plus-kilowatt electric generating station to operate on the
Georgia Power system. It is named for Harllee Branch Jr., former
chairman of the board of Southern Company and president of Georgia
Power. Construction on the plant began in 1961, and by the summer of
1969,

Coal pouring onto pile
four units were in operation. The 1,539,000 kilowatts
generated by Plant Branch provides enough electrical power for
342,000 households.

And now Plant Branch will be among the first to close coal-generating
units.
According to
Melissa Stiers for GPB News 12 July 2011,

Georgia Power Closing Three Plants,

Two coal fired units at Plant Branch in Milledgeville will close in
2013. That’s a result of federal regulation tightening air pollution
controls. The company has said it’s too costly to upgrade those
units.


Plant Branch across Lake Sinclair
As we know, Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company

claimed it was incompetent to deal with the new EPA regulations
even though it had already announced the Plant Branch closures (amounting to about 770 MW),
and later SO announced

4,000 MW of coal plant closures.

While the various news stories keep saying Plant Branch is in Milledgeville,
actually, it’s on the other side of Lake Sinclair, closer to Eatonville,

Plant Branch site in Putnam County qpublic map
and in Putnam County.
A quick glance at the

Putnam County Tax Assessor database maps
shows that the land parcel containing Plant Branch
is 913.87 acres, much of which isn’t actually used by the plant.
And Georgia Power owns a total of more than 3,000 acres adjacent
to that site.
So I’m guessing the 2,200 acres figure is simply around 3,100 total
Georgia Power acres minus 913 acres for the present Plant Branch site.

Estimates for land needed for a megawatt of solar power generation range

Continue reading →

Company to build 90 MW solar and become a utility

What to do if you can’t interest Georgia Power in building solar?
Do it yourself, and do enough so you can be a utility yourself.
That’s the loophole in the 1973

Electric Territorial Act
that FPL and JEA use to burn coal at Plant Scherer in Georgia and export the power to Florida.
Now Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. is using the loophole for a better purpose:
building almost twice as much solar generation
as Georgia Power’s meager 50 MW.


Georgia Solar Utilities
Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle yesterday

New Georgia utility pitches solar plant:
A new utility is planning to build a $320 million solar power plant on 2,200 acres adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.

Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. initially approached Georgia Power, a
unit of Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), with a proposal to build the plant
and sell it to Georgia Power through a power-purchasing agreement.

Georgia Power is retiring two coal-fired units at Plant Branch, part
of a move to reduce the Atlanta-based utility’s reliance on coal.

But when Georgia Power officials declined to take part in the
project last May, Georgia Solar Utilities executives decided to
build the plant on their own and operate it as a new utility
independent of Georgia Power.

Once cost prohibitive, solar energy has become competitive with
fossil fuels because of the rising costs of coal and tighter
government regulation of coal emissions, said Robert Green, founder
of Georgia Solar Utilities.

“When you don’t have to buy coal or worry about environmental
hangovers, it overwhelms the costs of fossil fuels, Green said
Thursday after presenting the proposal to the Georgia Public Service
Commission’s Energy Committee.

Some say the PSC can’t approve such a utility because of that 1973 law.
I suspect that if they don’t approve this proposal, the next one
will be even harder to turn down, and the next one,
as they become even more competitive.

How competitive?

Continue reading →

Vogtle circular firing squad delaying opening

Southern Company and the other owners of Plant Vogtle are blaming the contractors (who are suing them) for further delays in construction. How much money will they waste before they never open?

Kristi E. Swartz wrote for the AJC yesterday, Disputed costs at Vogtle rise,

Georgia Power and a group of municipal and cooperative electric companies are building twin 1,100-megawatt reactors, the first in the United States to win permits in 30 years. The total expected cost of the project is $14 billion, but potential cost overruns at Vogtle, located in Waynesboro in east Georgia, continue to grow, according to the recent Southern Co. regulatory filing.

Delays in getting federal licensing approvals for the new reactor design and then for the entire project have been cited as the chief culprit.

Because of the dispute with contractors over the additional costs, “the owners are evaluating whether maintaining the currently scheduled commercial operation dates of 2016 and 2017 remains in the best interest of their customers,” the filing said. The total amount of the cost overruns could be well over $900 million; Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the project, so its share is $425 million, the latest filing said. Originally the overrun was projected at $400 million when the issue was first made public in April.

Up another $25 million since April? How long until it gets into billions of cost overruns? Which will be paid by whom?

Continue reading →