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Tag Archives: Buddy Carter
Want to finance solar? Call GA Sen. Jack Murphy today about SB 51
A Georgia Senate committee needs to take it up
a bill that would greatly ease financing
solar power for your housetop or business roof.
Sen. Jack Murphy is the chair, and you can contact him today.
GA SB 51,
The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act,
was read to the Senate 16 January 2013
and referred to the Committee on
Regulated Industries and Utilities.
Here’s contact information for the Chair of that Committee:
GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act
Georgia Senator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current
session of the legislature,
SB 51,
“The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001”.
It attempts to fix
Georgia’s special solar financing problem,
the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act.
Why 2001?
Apparently Buddy Carter has been introducing it every year since then.
Last year
Georgia Power’s disinformation campaign
nuked it when it was
SB 401.
Has the legislature gotten tired of Georgia Power and its parent the Southern
Company being
way late and overbudget on those new nukes?
Does the legislature want Georgia citizens to get the savings and job
benefits of
the fastest growing energy source in the country?
Will
GaSU help with SB 51, or only with GaSU’s attempt to become a solar
monopoly utility?
You can contact your legislators and tell them what you think.
Every one of them who
voted for Georgia Power’s stealth-tax rate hike for that nuke boondoggle
should vote for SB 51 to start getting Georgia on a clean path to jobs
and energy independence.
This bill is not perfect:
it counts
“generator fueled by biomass”
as
SB 401 revived in SB 459: lets you generate and sell solar power
SB 401 got tabled in the Natural Resources Committee.
46 other states already let people generate solar power and sell it to
a third party.
Yet in only four states — Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and
Kentucky Mdash; are third party power purchase agreements disallowed,
according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
But Georgia Power convinced that committee that it would raise
rates for everybody else.
Which is pretty rich coming from the same gapower that is
already charging customers Construction Work in Progress
for its nuke boondoggle.
So SB 401 sponsor Sen. Buddy Carter found another way.
Mary Landers wrote for the Savannah Morning News Friday,
Solar bill jolted back to life:
To revive his bill, Carter tacked it onto to one already sent to the
Regulated Industries Committee — SB 459, which would allow
consumers to opt-out of smart meters like the ones Georgia Power is
currently installing in Savannah. The committee held a hearing on
the bill Thursday, ultimately tabling it, and saying they wanted
more information about how power purchase agreements work in other
states.Carter was elated.
“It’s out there now and people are aware of it,” he
said. It’s getting media attention. I feel good about it.”
Help him feel even better about it.
Contact the committee chair and tell him we want solar cogeneration:
Senator William Ligon
404-656-0045
william.ligon@senate.ga.gov
Oh, regarding the meter opt-out in the main body of the bill,
why let gapower charge people for that?
You can mention to Sen. Ligon that people should be able to opt out for free.
-jsq
PS: Owed to Bob Ingram.