{"id":11850,"date":"2014-12-15T10:37:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T15:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=11850"},"modified":"2014-12-15T10:46:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T15:46:11","slug":"solar-bills-in-the-georgia-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/solar-bills-in-the-georgia-legislature.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar bills in the Georgia legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\r\nEvery year since about 2000 one or more solar bills have been\r\nbefore the Georgia legislature to modify the\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/tv-station-gets-it-territoriality-law-prevents-solar-in-georgia.html\">1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>\r\nto enable solar financing.\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/the-fragility-of-centralized-energy-systems.html\">\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;width:300px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.altenerg.com\/_resources\/back_issues\/sep-oct-2012\/SO.2012.story3.image2.jpg\"><\/a>\r\n2015 could be the year one of them finally passes,\r\nwhat with\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/rooftop-solar-catching-on-1973-anti-finance-law-really-needs-fixing.html\">\r\ninfluential people finally waking up\r\nto the cost-saving and energy-independence power of solar panels<\/a>.\r\nIf you want\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/the-fragility-of-centralized-energy-systems.html\">\r\nreal energy reliability<\/a>, lower power bills, and local jobs,\r\nyou can help pass whichever bill gets before the legislature this year,\r\nand right now is a good time to help draft that bill.\r\n<p>\r\nHere are a few recent bills.\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\r\n2013:\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/ga-sb-51-the-the-georgia-cogeneration-and-distributed-generation-act.html\">\r\nSB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act<\/a>\r\n<p>\r\nThat year\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/scorecard-on-internet-and-energy-at-the-bird-supper.html\">\r\neven the Georgia Municipal Association fell for opposing SB 51<\/a>,\r\nand ALEC and Georgia Power once again smothered it in committee.\r\nThis year two people in the Valdosta City government have told LAKE\r\nof their interest in passing a solar financing bill, so that&#8217;s a big change.<!--more-->\r\n\r\n\r\n<li>\r\n2013\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/renewable-portfolio-standards-ga-nc-and-alec.html\">HB 503 for renewable portfolio standards<\/a>\r\n<li>\r\n2014:\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/hb-657-the-rural-georgia-economic-recovery-and-solar-resource-act-of-2014.html\">\r\nHB 657, the Rural Georgia Economic Recovery and Solar Resource Act of 2014<\/a>\r\n<li>\r\n2014:\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/ga-bill-for-solar-financing.html\">\r\nHB 874, the Solar Power Free-Market Financing and Property Rights Act of 2014<\/a>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>\r\nAll these bills have been sunk in committee by Georgia Power\r\nand\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/alec-responds-to-sierra-club-report.html\">\r\nby ALEC&#8217;s &#8220;our state legislators&#8221;<\/a>.\r\n<p>\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/in-georgia-competitive-is-not-for-you.html\">\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;width:300px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/images\/6a0120a58214e4970b016766d856cd970b-pi.jpg\"><\/a>\r\nEvery year I and many others argue with Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers\r\nand Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning about solar financing, but so far\r\nthey have not been willing to relent on changing\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/in-georgia-competitive-is-not-for-you.html\">\r\nthe 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>,\r\nwhich says you can sell your generated electricity only to your\r\none and only electric utility, as chosen for you by your geographical location,\r\nat the price the utility sets, and only up to a very low\r\nmaximum.\r\n<p>\r\nHowever, this year some of the people and organizations that previously\r\ndidn&#8217;t really care\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/rooftop-solar-catching-on-1973-anti-finance-law-really-needs-fixing.html\">\r\nare getting on board<\/a>, so things could change.\r\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/moodys-confirms-excellent-bond-rating-for-lowndes-county-school-district.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8071\/8274959175_1da073bc2c_m.jpg\"><\/a>\r\nThat plus Georgia Power&#8217;s getting a lot of good press out of the\r\nsolar farms it&#8217;s been doing for the military lately, such as at\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/10-mw-solar-power-at-robins-air-force-base.html\">\r\nRobins AFB<\/a>.\r\nIf it&#8217;s good for military bases, how about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/moodys-confirms-excellent-bond-rating-for-lowndes-county-school-district.html\">for schools<\/a>?\r\nOr the Valdosta City Hall parking lot?\r\nOr the county palace?\r\nOr your business or home roof?\r\n<p>\r\nFor much more solar background, see\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/hot-topics\/solar.html\">\r\nthe solar topic on the LAKE blog<\/a>.\r\n<p>\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year since about 2000 one or more solar bills have been before the Georgia legislature to modify the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act to enable solar financing. 2015 could be the year one of them finally passes, what with influential people finally waking up to the cost-saving and energy-independence power of solar panels. If [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,19,20,24],"tags":[713,8701,8709,8702,8710,753,12,7,7357,6310,8714,971,6],"class_list":["post-11850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia","category-history","category-law","category-solar","tag-financing","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-legislature","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-property-rights","tag-renewable-portfolio-standards","tag-solar","tag-territorial-electric-service-act","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-358","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11850"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11859,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11850\/revisions\/11859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}