\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nSouthern Company subsidiary Southern Power today announced the\r\nacquisition of two photovoltaic (PV) solar projects totaling 99\r\nmegawatts (MW) in Georgia — the 80-MW\r\n\r\nDecatur Parkway Solar\r\nProject<\/a> and the 19-MW\r\n\r\nDecatur County Solar Project<\/a> — from\r\nTradewind Energy, Inc.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe projects were proposed by\r\n\r\n Tradewind Energy, Inc. and selected by\r\nSouthern Company subsidiary Georgia Power in a competitive process\r\nthrough the nationally recognized Georgia Power Advanced Solar\r\nInitiative.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n“Southern Power’s strategic investment in the Decatur solar projects\r\nwill help meet Georgia’s growing energy needs,” said Southern\r\nCompany Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning. “These\r\nprojects and others are enhancing Georgia’s position as a national\r\nleader in renewable energy.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nWhich is quite a turnaround from June 2012, when\r\n\r\nFanning was quoted in the Wall Street Journal<\/a> as saying\r\n
\r\n\r\nIf conventional coal is not going to get done, and there’s only a\r\nfew people who can do nuclear—this ain’t a job for\r\nbeginners—you’re left with gas and, heaven forbid,\r\nrenewables?” He cautions: “Now I’m as excited about\r\nrenewables as anybody. But they’re a niche play.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nNo more “heaven forbid” or “niche play”.\r\n
\r\nBut let’s compare the numbers. Back to today’s PR:\r\n
\r\n\r\nWith the development of the Decatur County projects, Southern Power\r\nwill own approximately 670 MW of renewable energy generating\r\ncapacity that is either already in operation or under development.\r\nThe company owns seven solar projects in partnership with Turner\r\nRenewable Energy and one solar project in partnership with First\r\nSolar. Southern Power also owns one of the nation’s largest biomass\r\npower plants in Nacogdoches, Texas, and has recently announced plans\r\nto develop a 131-MW solar facility in Taylor County, Georgia, which\r\nis expected to be completed in 2016.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThe PR doesn’t mention those Turner projects are in other states,\r\nand it lumps biomass in with renewables.\r\nThat\r\n\r\nNacogdoches boondoggle is rated at 100 MW<\/a>,\r\nso that’s really 570 MW of solar power by Southern Power.\r\n
\r\n\r\nSouthern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is a leading U.S.\r\nwholesale energy provider, meeting the electricity needs of\r\nmunicipalities, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities.\r\nWith these acquisitions, Southern Power and its subsidiaries will\r\nown and operate 21 facilities in eight states, with more than 9,100\r\nMW of generating capacity operating or under development in Alabama,\r\nCalifornia, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and\r\nTexas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nSo that’s 6.2% solar.\r\n
\r\nBut wait:\r\n
\r\n\r\nWith more than 4.5 million customers and approximately 46,000\r\nmegawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company\r\n(NYSE: SO) is the premier energy company serving the Southeast\r\nthrough its subsidiaries.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nSo 570 MW \/ 46,000 MW is 1.24%.\r\n
\r\nSorry Tom, that still looks pretty niche.\r\nBut if you keep doubling solar deployments every year, you can fix that.\r\n
\r\nStopping these two boondoggles would also help:\r\n
\r\n\r\nSouthern Company and its subsidiaries are leading the nation’s\r\nnuclear renaissance through the construction of the first new\r\nnuclear units to be built in a generation of Americans and are\r\ndemonstrating their commitment to energy innovation through the\r\ndevelopment of a state-of-the-art coal gasification plant.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nSouthern Company says the Vogtle nuclear units 3 and 4 it’s\r\nbuilding would produce 2.2 GW total.\r\nAnd they’re already a billion dollars over budget and\r\nwould suck up more water than the city of Savannah,\r\naccording to Mary Landers, SavannaNow, 20 August 2014, \r\nLatest Vogtle spending approved; plea for water conservation ignored<\/a>.\r\n
\r\nTwo years ago now, Google said it had spent about a billion dollars\r\nin solar and wind power that could produce 2 GW of energy<\/a>.\r\nThat’s right, for just the cost overrun of Plant Vogtle, Google already\r\nbought almost that much real renewable energy two years ago.\r\nSouthern Company could have deployed several times Vogtle unit 2 and 3’s\r\n2.2 GW in solar energy instead by now, on budget, on time, and without\r\nany need to suck up cooling water.\r\n
\r\nIn May 2013, Southern Company’s stock got downgraded over Vogtle and that Kemper “clean coal” project<\/a>,\r\nbecause of delays and cost overruns.\r\nSO’s stock ran up since then, but is now back almost at the same price\r\nas after that downgrade.\r\n
\r\nChanging the rhetoric is a good first step.\r\nBuying a few solar farms is even better.\r\nSO needs to keep doing that, and doing it faster,\r\nfor solar power to be more than a niche play for Georgia Power or Southern Company.\r\nIf SO doesn’t do that, the infamous “death spiral”<\/a> awaits for\r\nutilties that don’t get on with renewable energy.\r\nHeaven forbid that.\r\nActually, Tom Fanning and Georgia Power CEO Tom Fanning forbid that,\r\nby getting on with solar power even faster.\r\n
\r\nFortunately, there are other signs this is happening.\r\nGeorgia Power in 2014 deployed\r\n\r\nfour 30-MW each solar plants on military bases in Georgia<\/a>.\r\nAnd Georgia Power\r\n\r\nclaims credit for the HB 57 solar financing bill<\/a>\r\nthat already unanimously passed the Georgia House.\r\n
\r\nThe easiest way to make people believe Georgia Power or SO is serious\r\nwould be to cancel Plant Vogtle.\r\nAnd in any case doubling solar deployments each year would do the trick.\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decatur County scores two big solar projects. When will Lowndes County get a move on in solar? How about some projects like this at your empty industrial parks, Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority? Now that even Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning is bragging about renewable energy, maybe the solar sun is shining enough for other local governments […]","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":[216,14,18,104,24,178],"tags":[8753,1114,8262,8261,8704,8701,8708,171,8702,12,7,8737,107,8714,108,1116,6,8749,7920],"class_list":["post-12299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-nuclear","category-solar","category-vlcia","tag-coal","tag-decatur-county","tag-decatur-county-solar-project","tag-decatur-parkway-solar-project","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-tradewind-energy","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia","tag-vlda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3cn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299","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=12299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12302,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299\/revisions\/12302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}