Tag Archives: rooftop solar

Utilities can’t take the solar heat

Utilities are trying increasingly desperate tactics in their losing battle against distributed rooftop solar power. It’s time for them to get out in front and lead instead.

Clare Foran wrote for NationalJournal Are Utilities Wilting From Heat of Solar Competition?

Regulatory battles over solar power payment models played out in several states this year. And as the dust settles, solar providers are claiming victory. Utilities, on the other hand, are trying to reframe the conversation entirely by insisting they aren’t an enemy of solar.

After discussing utlities’ attempts to bash net metering, she notes the Sierra Club hard-won victory over the ALEC solar tax:

In November, Georgia Power backed down Continue reading →

Green bonds for rooftop solar?

What if the Industrial Authority used its bond-issuing power to finance rooftop solar? And what if it combined that with utility-scale solar projects on its own industrial park lands, and for example at the airport, or at the new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant?

Here’s the idea, in a report by Citi GPS, Energy Darwinism: The Evolution of the Energy Industry, October 2013, pages 48-49,

It is not just the technology that is evolving in the solar industry; the financing of solar projects, both residential and utility-scale is evolving quickly. The most notable development here has been in the form of solar leasing, whereby the rooftop panels are owned by a third party who effectively leases the rooftop from the home/factory/office owner, the latter receiving payment normally through a reduction in electricity bills paid for by the lessee. This provides the benefits of cheaper and cleaner solar electricity to the homeowner, whilst negating the need for the significant initial capital outlay. The panel owner or lessee earns their return via incentive mechanisms such as the U.S. Investment Tax Credit, and via the sale of the electricity back to the local utility. This financing mechanism has proved particularly successful in the U.S. and is gaining traction in the UK, with companies in other countries looking to follow suit.

This is what Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning suggested back in May that SO might do. But we don’t have to wait on Southern Company or Georgia Power.

At the utility scale level, the emergence of innovative financing vehicles such as green bonds Continue reading →

Southern Company missed earnings: weather and Kemper Coal and nuclear Plant Vogtle

SO CEO Tom Fanning continued to blame slow sales and earnings on mild weather (air conditioners running less), but the big boondoggle going bad is Kemper Coal, which has slipped six months from May 2014 to Q4 2014, and even the Wall Street Journal calls it “possibly the most expensive fossil-fuel power plant ever built in the U.S”. How bad will SO’s stock tank when SO’s even more expensive nuclear Plant Vogtle slips even more? Dividends can’t prop up SO’s share price forever, not when PSCs are revolting against the rate hikes and guaranteed profit hikes that prop up those dividends. When will Southern Company and Georgia Power get out front and lead in solar and wind power? Before or after the public, state public service commissions, and investors make them do it?

Justin Loiseau wrote for DailyFinance 4 November 2013, Southern Company Earnings: A $5 Billion Blunder? 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 →

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 →

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 →