{"id":13530,"date":"2015-06-30T10:54:35","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T14:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13530"},"modified":"2015-06-30T11:11:45","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T15:11:45","slug":"georgia-power-starts-selling-rooftop-solar-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/georgia-power-starts-selling-rooftop-solar-tomorrow.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Power starts selling rooftop solar tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nFor most of June, Georgia Power has had two ads rotating on the\r\n\r\n\"300x225<\/a>\r\nfive LED billboards in Valdosta, saying\r\n

\r\nGiving you the power to go solar —Georgia Power\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWhen? Tomorrow, July 1st, as\r\n\r\nSouthern Company CEO Tom Fanning said<\/a>\r\nat the SO Stockholder meeting 27 May 2015.\r\nWhy then?\r\nBecause that’s when\r\n\r\nHB 57<\/a>, aka the Solar Power Free-Market Financing Act of 2015,\r\n\r\ngoes into effect<\/a>.\r\nAs Tom Fanning has made his mantra since that meeting:\r\n

\r\n“If somebody wants to buy distributed generation, I want to sell it to ’em,”\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHerman K. Trabish, Utility Dive, 11 June 2015 \r\n\r\nInside Georgia Power’s move into the residential solar market:\r\nThe utility says it will offer solar through an unregulated business, but installers fear possible anticompetitive impacts<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe strategy behind the move is clear. As Fanning told other utility\r\nCEOs at a panel discussion this week, “If distributed\r\ngeneration is eroding your growth, own distributed\r\ngeneration!”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We expect to have a new customer solar program ready by July\r\n1, 2015, where we will sell solar installation services to customers\r\nthrough an unregulated business unit,” Georgia Power\r\nSpokesperson John Kraft said. “We don’t expect leasing to be a\r\npart of this offering.” But, Kraft added, the program’s\r\nstructure and payment options are still in development.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSolar advocates backed the law’s passage because it allows Georgians\r\nto install solar “using a financing mechanism of their choice,\r\nincluding financing mechanisms such as leases and solar energy\r\nprocurement agreements, in which payments are based on the output of\r\nthe system,” according to Steve O’Day, head of the\r\nEnvironmental and Sustainability Practice at Georgia law firm Smith,\r\nGambrell & Russell.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt also limits residential third party financed systems to 10 kW and\r\nTPO commercial installations to no more than 125% of the host site’s\r\npeak demand, O’Day explained. And it makes clear that third party\r\nowners who transfer the solar generation to system hosts are not\r\nelectric utilities.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

Installers approve of the law<\/H4>\r\n

\r\nSolarCity applauded the law’s finalization. “We think third\r\nparty ownership is an important building block for any mature solar\r\nmarket,” said the company’s Deputy Director of Policy Aaron\r\nKraus.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nNo word yet whether SolarCity will move into Georgia.\r\n

\r\nAnd yes, Georgia solar installers are right to be worried about\r\nGeorgia Power trying to own distributed generation.\r\nWe shall see whether the titanic utility can be more nimble\r\nthan the hundreds of pre-existing solar installers,\r\nnow that they also are no longer constrained by financing.\r\n

\r\nThere’s a lot more in that article, including this quote from\r\n“Sam Hilley, a spokesperson for Georgia engineering, procurement, and construction firm Radiance Solar” which focuses on “industrial-scale solar installations”:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n“We can now go to a school or another non-profit entity and\r\nput solar on the facility at no upfront cost, sell the power under a\r\nfixed cost long term PPA, and, since solar has no fuel cost, offer\r\nimmediate savings on what they pay for electricity.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIt’s time for\r\n\r\nsolar Lowndes High School<\/a>!\r\nAnd there’s no longer any excuse for lack of solar panels\r\non the Lowndes County Palace.\r\nOr on Valdosta City Hall parking lots.\r\n

\r\nThis move into solar by Georgia Power and Southern Company is\r\none of many reasons the recent Supreme Court decision requiring EPA to provide cost-benefit analysis for its coal-emissions rule<\/a> is less significant than it may seem.\r\nThe sun is rising, and even the Supreme Court can’t stop it.\r\n

\r\nThose billboards point to\r\n\r\ngeorgiapower.com\/solar\/<\/a>, which I suppose will be updated tomorrow\r\nwith how to buy rooftop solar power from Georgia Power.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"600x450<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGretchen took these pictures 10 June 2015.\r\nI started to crop out the power lines, but then it occurred to me\r\nthey were relevant.\r\n

\r\nWhether it wants to admit it or not,\r\nGeorgia Power is starting to do what \r\nAustinEnergy did back in 2003<\/a>:\r\ndeploy new electricity generation through distributed rooftop solar power.\r\nOnly a dozen years later, the titanic ship of Southern Company\r\nis finally turning towards the sun.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of June, Georgia Power has had two ads rotating on the five LED billboards in Valdosta, saying Giving you the power to go solar —Georgia Power When? Tomorrow, July 1st, as Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said at the SO Stockholder meeting 27 May 2015. Why then? Because that’s when HB 57, aka […]","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":[14,50,8,18,20,24,1019],"tags":[8704,8701,8708,8270,8702,12,7,1035,1036,8549,8714,8812,108,6339,6],"class_list":["post-13530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-epa","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-law","category-solar","category-solarcity","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-hb-57","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-power-purchase-agreement","tag-ppa","tag-radiance-solar","tag-solar","tag-solarcity","tag-southern-company","tag-tom-fanning","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3we","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530","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=13530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13534,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530\/revisions\/13534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}