{"id":12015,"date":"2015-01-14T08:20:29","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T13:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=12015"},"modified":"2015-01-14T08:22:44","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T13:22:44","slug":"georgia-power-claims-credit-for-solar-leasing-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/georgia-power-claims-credit-for-solar-leasing-bill.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Power claims credit for solar leasing bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nThat\r\n\r\nantique 1973 law<\/a> may finally change to greatly facilitate\r\nsolar financing through power purchase agreements (PPAs),\r\nnow that Georgia Power has finally realized the good PR it’s\r\ngetting for its own solar power deployments.\r\n

\r\nWalter C. Jones, Jacksonville.com, 13 January 2015,\r\n\r\nSolar access for residences, churches, small businesses could become easier under agreement<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nATLANTA | Homeowners, churches and small businesses would soon have\r\naccess to the financing available in two-dozen states for the\r\ninstallation of solar panels with little upfront costs based on an\r\nagreement announced Tuesday during a legislative hearing.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nComing up with $18,000 or more in cash to install photovoltaic\r\npanels on the average home is difficult for most homeowners. But if\r\nthe agreement becomes law, they could lease their roof to companies\r\nthat pay them back with free electricity, selling the rest to the\r\nutilities.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOr cities or counties.\r\nValdosta or Lowndes County, for instance, might save hundreds of\r\nthousands of dollars a year on utility bills if they could finance\r\nsolar power through PPAs.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGeorgia has the fastest-growing solar\r\n\r\n employment, due largely to\r\nGeorgia Power’s Advanced Solar Initiative that contracts with\r\ncommercial power providers, according to the broker of the agreement\r\nRep. Mike Dudgeon, R-Johns Creek.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“At the residential and small-business level, we’re falling\r\nbehind,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHere’s the key part:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe utilities have discouraged the legislature from considering\r\nchanges to the law, partly because they didn’t trust each other not\r\nto use it as an excuse to finagle a competitive advantage in the\r\n40-year-old Territorial Services Act that divvies up the state\r\nbetween them. They also raised concerns that the sensitive\r\noperations of the electric grid could be upset by poorly installed\r\nsolar systems feeding power into it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Georgia Power is supportive of solar development in this\r\nstate, and we have always said that we support it as long as\r\nnon-solar customers are not burdened nor that it negatively impacted\r\nthe reliability of the electric grid,” said company lobbyist\r\nJohn D’Andrea. “\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nHeather Teilhet, vice president of government relations for\r\nGeorgia’s 41 electric-membership cooperatives, acknowledged that\r\nDudgeon worked hard to broker the deal.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Since our first meeting, Rep. Dudgeon has been open and\r\nthoughtful about changes to his bill. He has shown great leadership\r\nfacilitating this negotiation between our industries,” she\r\nsaid. “Furthermore, the EMCs, Oglethorpe Power, Georgia Power,\r\nMEAG, the Electric Cities, and the solar industry have negotiated\r\nfairly, openly and in good faith.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSounds like as long as the legislature recognizes Georgia Power\r\nis still in charge, that antique law can finally change.\r\nWe shall see when we see the bill and the vote.\r\nI bet it will look very similar to\r\nprevious solar bills<\/a>.\r\nBut if this time it has Georgia Power’s imprimatur, it will pass.\r\n

\r\nAnd that approval by the state’s biggest power company never would have\r\nhappened if not for statewide activism by solar proponents<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPS: Thanks to Tim Carroll for the tip.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That antique 1973 law may finally change to greatly facilitate solar financing through power purchase agreements (PPAs), now that Georgia Power has finally realized the good PR it’s getting for its own solar power deployments. Walter C. Jones, Jacksonville.com, 13 January 2015, Solar access for residences, churches, small businesses could become easier under agreement, ATLANTA […]","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":[8,18,20,24],"tags":[7703,8701,8708,8702,8710,753,12,7,8173,1035,8714,6],"class_list":["post-12015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-law","category-solar","tag-advanced-solar-initiative","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-legislature","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mike-dudgeon","tag-power-purchase-agreement","tag-solar","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-37N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015","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=12015"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12019,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions\/12019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}