How much solar power is there in Georgia? Quite a bit, and it’s everywhere, according to Georgia Energy Data map by Southface.
Gold disks indicate individual solar installations; green disks separate into many when zoomed.
There are three 1 megawattt (MW) solar farms in Berrien County I didn’t know about, and more elsewhere in the Suwannee River Basin, in almost every county. Continue reading
On the closed landfill across from Valdosta State Prison on Val Tech Road, what looks like maybe a megawatt of solar panels by the City of Valdosta.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 1 September 2017
A press release by Southface promises:
Long-term jobs that cannot be exported will also come from developing workers skilled in the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems.How will that happen?
October 29, 2009 –Southface is based in Atlanta. This is supposed to be a regional program, so maybe we can get some of these jobs right here in Lowndes County. The DoE says:
Led by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida, six southern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will join together to create a “Southern Regional Resource and Training Program” to train a robust workforce in the installation of solar technologies for the burgeoning solar industry. Southface will deliver solar installation training through its new Green Jobs Training Center, and will serve on the program’s advisory board.
SoutheastUCF is the coordinator, but there’s no reason a training center couldn’t be in Valdosta. Who at VSU should be involved in this?
* University of Central Florida ($2,800,000)
This project will create the Southern Alternative Energy Training Network, which will develop industry-recognized and staff-alternative energy training centers throughout the southern U.S. The resulting programs will create a trained pipeline of workers to meet current and future employment demands needed by the solar industry.