![](\"http:\/\/www.seia.org\/sites\/default\/files\/top10-GA_4.png\")
<\/a>\r\nSummer before last, after statewide requests by Georgia Sierra Club, Greenlaw, and many others: Georgia PSC required Georgia Power to buy twice\r\nas much solar power<\/a>.\r\nAbout a year later, Mary Landers, Savannahnow, 18 November 2014, Georgia is fastest growing solar market<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\nLast year the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a motion\r\nfor Georgia Power, the state’s largest utility, to add 525 MW of\r\nsolar power generation to its portfolio by 2016.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“That pushed out the growth of solar, especially projecting\r\nforward,”\r\n\r\n [Tom] Swanson [manager of Pew’s Clean Energy initiative] said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe PSC’s decision acted on solar much like a renewable energy\r\nportfolio — a requirement for utilities to obtain a set amount\r\nof energy from renewable sources. Pew recommends that Georgia adopt\r\na renewable energy portfolio to bring in more diverse energy\r\nsolutions.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“It can be a great economic opportunity for Georgia,”\r\nSwanson said. “If you can expand across more sectors instead\r\nof just what the PSC did with solar, it’s good for Georgia and for\r\nthe country.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThat activism didn’t stop summer before last, either.\r\nGA Sierra Club also organized \r\na series of town halls across the state<\/a> opposing Georgia Power’s attempt to get GA PSC to impose ALEC’s solar connection fee like Dominion Power got in Virginia<\/a>.\r\nBy the time the GA PSC met, that fee wasn’t even proposed any more.\r\n
\r\nAnd now\r\nGeorgia is finally taking advantage of \r\nMoore’s Law for solar power<\/a>.\r\nAs\r\n\r\nSEIA notes<\/a>:\r\n
\r\n\r\nInstalled solar photovoltaic system prices in the U.S. have dropped\r\nsteadily — by 8% from last year and 49% from 2010.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nAnd those price drops continue to\r\n\r\nmore than double solar U.S. deployments every two years<\/a>.\r\nAnd even faster in Georgia, where Georgia Power and its parent Southern Company\r\nare finally\r\n\r\nhelping deploy numerous solar projects<\/a>,\r\neven\r\n\r\nhelping to pull the cork<\/a> out of the genie’s bottle\r\nby changing that\r\n\r\nantique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>\r\nthat has impeded solar financing in Georgia.\r\n
\r\nKristina Torres, AJC, 27 March 2015\r\n\r\nGeorgia solar bill headed to governor<\/a>,\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe Senate unanimously passed solar energy legislation Friday meant\r\nto ease the market for consumers, sending the measure to Gov. Nathan\r\nDeal for his signature.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nCalled the Solar Power Free Market Financing Act, House Bill 57 is\r\naimed at making it easier and more affordable for Georgia homeowners\r\nand small businesses to put solar panels on their rooftops.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe bill — sponsored by Republican state Rep. Mike Dudgeon of\r\nJohns Creek — clarifies how homeowners can get outside\r\nfinancing of small solar installations. Solar advocates say a key to\r\nwinning over homeowners is to make it easier to finance installation\r\nand equipment, which can cost $15,000 or more. With financing,\r\nhomeowners can avoid upfront costs and pay for their use of the\r\nsystem over time.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\nFor years, solar legislation has failed to win House passage<\/a>. But\r\nthe latest bill eases earlier concerns that Georgia Power and other\r\nutilities have expressed about the safety of new installations, as\r\nwell as their worries that the state would let in rival retail\r\nutilities. Those companies joined environmental groups and solar\r\ndevelopers in supporting the legislation earlier this year.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nSolar advocates said the legislation gives consumers, small\r\nbusinesses and schools more affordable ways to get solar energy from\r\ntheir rooftops. It would help property owners avoid steep upfront\r\ncosts for solar panels by allowing them to enter into agreements for\r\nsolar companies or local utilities to finance, own and maintain\r\nrooftop systems. Under a scenario popular in other states, consumers\r\ncould essentially lease the systems, tapping into the energy for a\r\nmonthly fee.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThat history of activism actually goes back years earlier, including\r\nrepeated appearances by many people at annual Southern Company\r\nstockholder meetings.\r\nAs I said to the GA PSC summer before last,\r\nthe cloudy day doesn’t last for an entire month<\/a>.\r\n
\r\n\r\nGA PSC has an opportunity right now to help Georgia Power lead\r\nthe state and\r\nthe region and the country out of the coal-clouded past straight\r\ninto that bright sunny future for ourselves and for those who come\r\nafter us.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nAnd because of all of you who helped, even\r\n\r\nthe historically regulatorially-captured GA PSC<\/a> did that.\r\nTurning Georgia in one year into the fastest-growing U.S. solar market.\r\nNow about to grow even faster when HB 57 becomes law.\r\nShutting down even more coal plants, and\r\nfocussing bright sunshine on the dirty pipeline snakes\r\nattempting to invade Georgia from the west (Spectra Energy and FPL’s\r\n\r\nSabal Trail fracked methane pipeline<\/a>) and the east (Kinder Morgan’s\r\n\r\nPalmetto Project fracked oil products pipeline<\/a>).\r\n
\r\nThe sun is rising on Georgia.\r\nNot even the oily hand of the fossil fuel industry can stop it.\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday’s vote started at least a year and a half ago. Organized years-long activism is paying off for everyone. Summer before last, after statewide requests by Georgia Sierra Club, Greenlaw, and many others: Georgia PSC required Georgia Power to buy twice as much solar power. About a year later, Mary Landers, Savannahnow, 18 November 2014, […]","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,17,18,6687,22,24],"tags":[8704,8707,8701,8708,8270,7622,8702,12,7,8379,6076,8712,6597,1437,8714,108,6966,971,6],"class_list":["post-12757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-ga-psc","category-georgia-power","category-pipeline-2","category-politics","category-solar","tag-economy","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-hb-57","tag-kinder-morgan","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-palmetto-project","tag-pipeline","tag-politics","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-senate","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-spectra-energy","tag-territorial-electric-service-act","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3jL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12757","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=12757"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12761,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12757\/revisions\/12761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}