Tag Archives: CWIP

We can charge you even if it’s cancelled! —CWIPped Georgia Power

Steve Willis An excellent article about the problems with Georgia Power’s new nukes on the Savannah River gets at something you may not know: they can charge you for them even if they’re cancelled!

Steve Willis wrote for the Georgia Sierran Oct./Nov./Dec. 2012 page 5, Overruns, Uncertainty Plague Vogtle Expansion,

If Southern Company abandons this project, the CWIP law not only allows Southern Company to keep all of the CWIP payments legally extorted from customers, but allows them to keep CWIP fees in place or even increase them until all their costs and profits have been fully recovered. Due to the run-away cost overruns, the CWIP charge on your monthly bill is already more than three times what Southern Company confidently claimed it would be at this time when they presented their case to “your” Georgia legislature in 2009.

And that 2009 legislature rubberstamped CWIP so it appears on your Georgia Power bill as Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider. Willis reminds us that the 2 nukes already at Plant Vogtle were projected to be four nukes for $600 million and ended up being two for $9 billion.

Everyone has heard the saying “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If the Vogtle expansion costs balloon, as many analysts expect, it will cost

Continue reading →

Georgia Power hikes prices for gas and nuclear, then complains about solar

Back in February, Georgia Power's natural gas Plant McDonough Georgia Power argued that a free market in solar power would cause price increases. Yet they already increased prices for natural gas and for nuclear plants that won’t produce electricity for years, if ever, and are already massively overbudget and behind schedule. Why should we believe them about solar when it’s their archaic projects they already are deploying that already have increased customer prices?

In February, Greg Roberts of Georgia Power argued,

Another reason is that the customers of Georgia Power, Georgia’s Georgia Power is the snail in the way of solar power in Georgia EMC’s and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia are paying for the poles and wires to transmit power, and the back-up generation to cover the electricity needs when the sun isn’t shining. These costs will have to be recovered from other customers not getting the privileged deal from the developer, raising everyone else’s rates.

While there are already numerous federal and state tax and other incentives for solar development in Georgia, it is still much more costly than the service provided by utilities. But what if third-party solar developers could get other electric customers in Georgia to foot the bill? That would be the result of this legislation.

It’s like asking Sally’s Café to pay the electric bill of Joe’s Cafe across the street, thus allowing Joe to undercut Sally’s prices.

Georgia Power well knows they could take a percentage of any power transmitted through their lines, so that wires and poles and backup generation argument is ludicrous. And as far as subsidies, how about this one, Georgia Power, Get the Facts, Investing in Georgia’s Energy Future:

Continue reading →

Another $3.5 billion nuclear cost overruns coming —David Staples @ HBA 2012-10-18

David A. Staples running for the Georgia Public Service Commission for District 5, talked about the ethical conflicts of the incumbents who take almost all of their campaign contributions from people associated with the utilities they regulate. Then he mentioned that the new nuclear reactors Georgia Power is building for Southern Company at Plant Vogtle have another $3.5 billion in cost overruns coming.

This is after the PSC incumbents just rubberstamped the Vogtle budget in August, and on top of the $900 million in cost overruns we already knew about. That $900 million was already more than 6% of the originally-projected $14 billion total cost. If it’s now $3.5 + $0.9 = $4.4 billion, that’s more than 31% over the original total. Maybe we should vote in some PSC members and legislators who will stop this nonsense.

Here’s the video:

Continue reading →

Elect Georgia Public Service Commissioners to represent you

GA PSC The Georgia Public Service Commission decides how much you pay for energy. If you’re tired of Georgia Power’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool and Georgia lagging far behind other states in solar and wind energy, or you just want PSC members who will represent you and who do not accept massive campaign contributions from the utilities they regulate or their employees or lawyers like the incumbents do; the incumbents who can’t even be bothered to show up for debates or to answer questionnaires.

David Staples for GA PSC Steve Oppenheimer for GA PSC Here are two GA PSC challengers who did answer a questionnaire: Democrat Steve Oppenheimer and Libertarian David Staples. Early voting has already started: you can vote for them today.

let the sun shine on Georgia While you’re at it, you can vote for statehouse legislators who will let the sun shine on Georgia.

-jsq

GA PSC questionnaire answers: Steve Oppenheimer

Steve Oppenheimer The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from Steve Oppenheimer for District 3. -jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    The PSC has a major role shaping energy policy for Georgia. I would like to schedule PSC hearings on the relationship of power production and our air, water, morbidity and mortality and our general quality of life. My professional background in dentistry & health care provides a keen understanding of the relationship of power generation and health. Dr David Satcher, former US Surgeon General and Executive Director Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse University has become a friend and part of my professional network during the campaign. I would like to see PSC convene hearings on the topic. Georgians for a Healthy Future, a relatively new, broad based, organization would provide another forum for discussion of these issues. Membership in Georgians for a Healthy Future includes Georgia Legislators on both sides of the aisle. The PSC must be a leader on these issues—as the legislature as a body will likely not be progressive on these issues.

Continue reading →

GA PSC questionnaire: David Staples

David Staples The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from David A. Staples for District 5. -jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    Impacts to community health and the environment have to be considered very carefully. I know there are a number of different ways of viewing the situation but the explanation I’ve found that works best with Republicans in trying to get their support is that it comes down to a private property matter. The right to swing ones fist ends at the other person’s nose. Does anyone have the right to pollute the air that I breathe or the water that I drink?

    If I buy a piece of property for instance along the Savannah River or Ogeechee River, does someone upstream from me have the right to pollute the water that then flows onto my land, carrying those pollutants with it?

    Absolutely not.

Continue reading →

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