Tag Archives: GA PSC

No solar tax –citizens in Gainesville GA

Solar advocate PSC Commissioner Bubba McDonald joined Tim Echols for this one.
Citizens said no to

Georgia Power’s proposed solar tax,
just like in

Savannah
and

Columbus.

Sarah Mueller wrote yesterday for Gainesville Times,

Public gives thumbs-down to Georgia Power rate hike,


The Georgia Power Co. rate hike proposal and suggested fees on solar
energy installation didn’t get a lot of support from residents who
attended a town meeting in Gainesville on Tuesday night.

The Georgia Public Service Commission is reviewing a $482 million
three-year rate increase request from the energy company that would
add about $7.84 to the average ratepayer’s monthly bill. The Georgia
Sierra Club and Georgia Watch has sponsored town meetings around the
state this month to let commissioners hear public input on the
request. Commissioners Tim Echols and Lauren “Bubba”
McDonald participated in the meeting at the Brenau Downtown Center.

Pursuing solar energy as state policy was also a hot topic at the
meeting, which was lightly attended. About 10 people spoke,
criticizing the proposed hike, the company’s proposed guaranteed
profit increase to 11.5 percent and Continue reading →

Columbus against Georgia Power solar tariff

Getting an earful across the state about

that proposed solar rate hike:
Georgia Power and the Georgia Public Service Commission,
first in Savannah,
then in Columbus.

Mike Owen wrote for the Ledger-Enquirer 21 October 2013,

Georgia Public Service Commission: Public decries Georgia Power rate hike, solar power fee,

A crowd of about 50 people gave Georgia Public Service Commission
Chairman Chuck Eaton an earful Monday night concerning a proposed
Georgia Power rate hike and controversial proposal to charge solar
power users a new fee.

At a public hearing in the auditorium of the Coca-Cola Space Science
Center, Eaton heard several audience members call the rate hike “bad
business practice” and “unconscionable,” while calling the solar
proposal “a step backward” and a “disincentive” for modern, clean
technology.



At issue is a two-pronged proposal before the PSC. Georgia Power is
asking the commissioners to approve a $482 million rate hike that
would add almost $100 a year to average residential electric bills,
said Seth Gunning, an organizer for the Sierra
Club of Georgia, one of the meeting’s sponsors.
It [Georgia Power] is also asking the PSC to allow it to levy a fee
on those who install solar panels on their homes or businesses.

The story continues with Continue reading →

Against rate hike and solar fee by Georgia Power

If you missed Savannah, Columbus tomorrow, then Gainesville, Athanes, and Atlanta: you can speak up against Georgia Power’s

attempt to charge you for saving them money by generating solar power.

Mary Landers wrote for SavannahNow Friday,

Ga. Power proposed rate hike, solar fee blasted,



“Unconscionable” and “theft” were two of the
words used Thursday evening to describe a residential rate hike and
fee on solar installations proposed by Georgia Power.

More than 50 people attended a meeting sponsored by Georgia Watch
and the Sierra Club at the Coastal Georgia Center to discuss the
issues.

The rate hike, proposed in July, would have average residential
customers paying almost $8 more a month. Some homeowners with solar
panels would pay a new monthly fee of about $22 by Georgia Power’s
estimations.


Video by WJCL News: Continue reading →

Florida Power and Light selected Sabal Trail for pipeline through Georgia

A Florida company selected a Texas company
that can use eminent domain in Georgia
to take your land.
Does that seem right to you?
Florida PSC has to review this pipeline.
Where’s Georgia PSC on this?

FPL PR 26 July 2013,

FPL selects Sabal Trail Transmission and Florida Southeast Connection to build new natural gas pipeline system into Florida,



Florida Power & Light Company today announced that its evaluation of
proposals for additional natural gas transportation capacity
determined that the best, most economical solution for ensuring
Florida’s continued access to the clean, affordable, U.S.-produced
fuel necessary to meet the growing electricity needs of the state’s
residents and businesses is a combination of a natural gas pipeline
and interconnection hub to be built by Sabal Trail Transmission,
LLC, and a second natural gas pipeline to be built by Florida
Southeast Connection, LLC….

Both Sabal Trail and Florida Southeast Connection will be interstate
natural gas pipelines subject to Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission approval and oversight.

In conjunction with today’s public announcement, FPL filed a
petition for prudence review with the Florida Public Service
Commission (PSC). Subject to PSC approval, Continue reading →

Which first to get more solar: fight big money or new technology?

In Georgia we’re still below 1% electric power generation from solar,
and we can get to 20-30% with no new technology whatever.


Georgia Power’s nuke overruns are

already causing a reaction of still more distributed solar.
Yet even that good news gets the usual reaction:
“This is necessary but not sufficient: a breakthrough in energy storage technology is required.”
Which just ain’t so;
distributed rooftop solar alone is plenty to move Georgia way ahead.
That’s why

Edison Electric Institute calls distributed solar
a massively disruptive influence on the utilities’
century-old cozy baseload model.
What’s holding solar back is those same big utilities, who understandably
don’t want to change their long-time cash cow.
But they’re going to change, and pretty quickly.

People unfamiliar with the sunny south (which is most of the world
south of, oh, Germany), still say things like this: Continue reading →

Nuke overruns already causing distributed solar in south Georgia

People are tired of

irresponsible trash government at the state level
colluding with monopoly utilities to hold Georgia back in distributed
solar power, and some of us are doing something about it;
you can, too.


Jigar Shah
wrote for SaportReport 15 September 2013

Solar more viable as Georgia’s new nuclear power plants face overruns,

I am seeing Georgia’s nuclear financial woes starting to prompt a
boon for distributed energy including solar, wind, biomass,
geothermal, low-impact hydro, high efficiency cogeneration, and
other sources of electricity.

Biomass?

Let’s not go back to that carbon-polluting forest-destroying factory-exploding waste of time and resources.
Solar, wind, efficiency, and conservation are the main events, with solar increasingly leading the pack.
And those nuke cost overruns are already driving solar up even faster: Continue reading →

GA PSC abdicates cost oversight for new nukes at Plant Vogtle

Finish it and then send we the taxpayers and ratepayers a bill?
What kind of deal is that?
So Southern Company already
dodged a Fitch downgrade by delaying
a decision, and now GA PSC wants to put it off for years more.
That also delays solar deployment in Georgia, putting us still farther behind.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday,

Ga. approves deal on nuclear plant costs,



A debate over the rising cost of building a nuclear power plant in
Georgia will be delayed for years under an agreement approved
Tuesday by Georgia’s utility regulators.

The elected members of Georgia’s Public Service Commission
unanimously approved a deal that will put off a decision on whether
Georgia Power can raise its budget for building two more nuclear
reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) until the first of those
reactors is finished. An independent state monitor has estimated the
first reactor will be finished in January 2018 at the earliest.

Regulators will continue monitoring company spending but will not
make a decision on raising the bottom line budget figure.

So GA PSC will keep watching costs run over budget but will do nothing
about it.

Oh, wait, it’s actually worse: Continue reading →

AGL pipeline station in Atlanta leaking, eroding, substandard construction

Citizens are calling for GA PSC Chuck Eaton to call it off.
Since apparently

GA PSC does have authority over natural gas pipelines,
maybe we should talk to our Commissioner
H. Doug Everett about that

proposed Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline through Lowndes County.
Wasting resources on natural gas now is foolish when

solar will overtake everything within a decade
and we should be getting on with sun power for Lowndes County
instead of methane for Florida.

Brookhaven Post 23 August 2013,

Deteriorating conditions at AGL regulator station site has citizens calling for its removal,



An Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) regulator station that is being
constructed on Parcel 36 off of Clairmont Rd., has been a project of
concern for some time now. Site conditions such as trenches full of
water, deteriorating banks, eroding foundations, corrosion,
substandard and hazardous construction practices, and a host of
other issues, have become the catalyst to amplifying an effort to
have Public Service Commissioner, Chuck Eaton, intervene and ask
that AGL cease construction and remove the station.

-jsq

Climate change adversely affecting U.S. power grid

Yes, and moving away from baseload coal, nukes, and natural gas
and towards distributed solar and wind power will help with that,
both directly by making the grid more resilient, and indirectly
by slowing climate change.

Clare Foran wrote for NationalJournal 12 August 2013,
Climate Change Is Threatening the Power Grid:

So says the White House, in a new report that recommends strengthening the grid.



Just days away from the 10-year anniversary of the worst power
outage in U.S. history, the White House and the Energy Department
released a report on Monday evaluating the resiliency of the
nation’s electric grid and recommending steps to prevent future
blackouts.

The report called storms and severe weather “the leading cause of
power outages in the United States,” and warned against the steep
cost of weather-related damage to the electric grid. It put the
price tag for electrical failures caused by inclement weather at
between $18 billion and $33 billion annually, and noted that costs
have increased in recent years, jumping from a range of $14 billion
to $26 billion in 2003 to $27 billion to $52 billion in 2012. Storms
exceeding a billion dollars in damages (electrical and otherwise)
have also become more frequent in the past decade, as the chart
below shows.

Well,
Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear 1 (ANO1) is still down

more than four months after a fatal accident
(hey,

look at that; Continue reading →

New nukes make no financial sense –financial expert to GA PSC

If new nukes make no sense because of natural gas prices,
they make even less sense with continually-dropping solar power prices.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday,

Regulator: New nuke plant now wouldn’t make sense,

If Georgia was starting from scratch, it would not build a nuclear
power plant….



An analyst working for state regulators, Philip Hayet, said in
written testimony that the total costs of building two more nuclear
reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) is more expensive than the
next-best option, constructing natural gas plants.

Still, Hayet said it is cheaper in most scenarios to finish the
nuclear plant rather than halt the project and instead build natural
gas plants.

But it’s not cheaper to finish a nuke than to halt it and
get on with wind offshore and distributed solar power throughout Georgia.

GA PSC didn’t publish Hayet’s calculations, using the old excuse of
“they involve proprietary financial information from Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power”.
But Edison Electric Institute didn’t need any proprietary financial
information to compute that Continue reading →