Yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission work session lasted only eight (8) minutes,
as you can see in the videos.
Maybe they will say more tonight.
Here’s the agenda.
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After the ribbon cutting for the new Tabby Solar and Lower Rates for Customers installation in Richmond Hill, I asked Dr. Sidney Smith about using electric meter technology for utility-scale solar plants, for example 1-5 megawatts, for which there is private venture capital seeking opportunities.
Here’s Part 1 of 2:
Private investment in utility-scale solar plants Part 1 of 2:
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.
Dr. Smith said that was possible, plus he’d already been talking to some potential German investors,
If our system works as we have designed, they’d like to invest 100 million or more.
That would be quite a bit of solar energy!
Here’s Part 2 of 2:
Private investment in utility-scale solar plants Part 2 of 2:
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.
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Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Work Session Meeting held February
27, 2012, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Here’s
the agenda.
Here’s a playlist:
Videos of Lowndes County Commission Work Session 2012 02 27
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 February 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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Dr. Sidney Smith explained how the electric meter he’s developed
uses cellular technology to facilitate direct billing from
solar generator and customer.
Gretchen asked him what if they generate more than they use.
Dr. Smith said they wouldn’t.
I asked what if they added more panels.
He said they could, but there are trees in the back.
Here’s Part 1 of 5:
Enabling a commodity market in solar power: Dr. Smith’s electric meters Part 1 of 5:
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.
He forgot about the parking lot out front where the panels he just connected are located: no shading there, and plenty of room for more solar panels.
Dr. Smith said the best places for solar are where there is no shade and near power poles. Gretchen asked how do you finance? Dr. Smith answered, Continue reading
Drs. Sidney Smith and Pat Godbey and their customer
cut the solar ribbon in Richmond Hill, Georgia,
17 Febuary 2012:
To commemorate the future of power in Georgia and the future for our children.I didn’t get the customer’s name; sorry.
You, too, could be a customer or a seller of distributed solar power if SB 459 gets out of committee and through the Georgia Senate and legislature into law. Contact your state senator today!
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Here’s the video:
Cutting the solar ribbon in Richmond Hill 2012 02 17
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.
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Dr. Smith speculated that Georgia Power might try to stop
solar installations like
the one he just opened in Richmond Hill
last Friday.
But can you imagine the power company coming and cutting our power offDoes Georgia Power really want to be seen opposing Lower Rates for Customers?and telling Dr. [inaudible] he has to pay more money? I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Maybe so, since Georgia Power
opposes SB 401, which would
facilitate exactly what Dr. Smith is doing.
You can help pass SB 401.
Call
your state senator, or
sign the petition.
Here’s the video:
Can you imagine the power company coming and cutting our power off? —Dr. Sidney Smith 2012 02 17
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.
Our goal is simply to make power available to all people at the lowest rates….He remarked this was their second installation. The first was at the Driftaway Cafe. They have another planned. A fourth one was supposed to be at a nearby orphanage, but Georgia Power wouldn’t allow it.
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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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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
You were talking about the private jail system. I’d like to voice my opinion of that. The private jail from our study so far, the cost…. I’m going to use a figure of around 800 inmates; we’re pretty close to 900 in our jail now. We figure around maybe $36 a day to feed the inmate, counting of course the food and our employment.Continue readingAnd looking at the private jail sector. And of course I’m responsible for the inmate whether he is in a private jail or in my jail. If I’m going to be responsible for that inmate, I want him here; I want him in my jail, not a private jail.
[applause]Another thing is the cost factor.
George Page, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County
Parks and Recreation Authority (VLCPRA), said at the 9 January 2012
meeting of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
that amateur baseball tournaments were coming in April 2012,
bringing 1200 room nights to Valdosta.
That caused applause.
He said the Black Softball Association is coming in February,
with 80-100 teams, and more room nights.
Local players won’t have to go to Atlanta for tournaments anymore.
Ed Hooper wrote for the VDT 1 Dec 2011, Baseball tournaments coming to Lowndes County
At its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority announced theUnited States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) is set to bring its highly-respected baseball tournament to Valdosta and Lowndes County in April.
The tournament features 24 teams from the state of Florida and 24 from Georgia, and consists of teams from ages 9-14 years old. The tournament will run from April 22-24, and will be played at Freedom Park, Vallotton Park, South Lowndes Park, Lowndes and Valdosta High Schools and possibly Valdosta State University.
“It will be the absolute best 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14-year-old teams coming out of the state of Georgia to face Florida,” Bubba Smith, Director of Tournament Operations for the USSSA said. “Obviously, it is a real competitive tournament that we put together, but it is real exciting to give the teams opportunities to mingle with each other.”
…
VLPRA director George Page also announced the Black Softball Association Tournament, which features 80-100 teams, will be played in Valdosta this upcoming February. The tournament will bring in around $200,000 to the local community.
At LCDP, he said all those tournaments would bring close to half a million dollars into the economy. More applause.
“I’m not a director to sit behind my desk and wait for them to come to us.”Apparently he’d modest, as well, because even more tournaments are coming, and the expected economic benefit of all those tournaments is actually larger. Continue reading