{"id":18759,"date":"2017-07-11T11:48:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T15:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=18759"},"modified":"2017-07-11T12:21:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T16:21:07","slug":"solar-powered-wastewater-treatment-plants-in-the-southeast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/solar-powered-wastewater-treatment-plants-in-the-southeast.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar-powered wastewater treatment plants in the southeast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nGeorgia Power is still digging in its heels about solar power even for cities.\r\nGeorgia Power CEO Paul Bowers and Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning:\r\nit’s time for you to lead the southeast into the sun<\/a>,\r\nnot, like King Canute, to try to hold back the sea-change to solar power<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"A<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\nA closer view of the solar panel array at Mud Creek Wastewater Teratment Plant.<\/a>\r\n
\r\nPhoto: submitted to VDT, apparently by City of Valdosta.<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nTerry Dickson, Florida Times Union, 4 July 2017,\r\n\r\nSoutheast Georgia cities turning to solar power to save money on wastewater treatment<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWOODBINE, Ga. | Small Georgia cities are turning to the sun for\r\npower at wastewater treatment plants to save money.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nBut many aren’t saving as much as expected because although they’ll\r\nuse less electricity from Georgia Power, they’ll be paying more per\r\nkillowatt hour, a couple of city managers said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWoodbine recently approved a $192,600 bid for a solar power plant\r\nwith a tracking system that will follow the sun across the sky and\r\npower the wastewater treatment plant between U.S. 17 and Interstate\r\n95.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We’re not the first one on this train,” City Manager\r\nKen Walker said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJesup is getting ready to bid its own plant and has already spent\r\n$70,000 on the project, City Manager Mike Deal said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn Southeast Georgia, Baxley was among the first cities to go to\r\nsolar power spurred partly by 1.03 percent financing for\r\n“greenovation,” City Manager Jeff Baxley said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe city has been online about 10 weeks and will soon pay off the\r\nplant as revenue starts coming in from a special purpose local\r\noption sales tax, Baxley said….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLike Baxley, Jesup’s [Mike] Deal is now having to deal with changing\r\nGeorgia Power rates.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“They want to take it off the low end,” he said of the\r\nreduction in rates, “and we want to take it off the high\r\nend.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn other words, Jesup wants Georgia Power to reduce the rate charged\r\nduring peak hours when the sun is shining on the solar panels while\r\nGeorgia Power wants to base reductions on the nighttime rate. Peak\r\nrates are higher, and it means Jesup would save less.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Power spokesman John Kraft said rate structures, especially\r\ncommercial and industrial, are more complex than residential rates.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Georgia Power works daily with customers to help them\r\nunderstand the costs and benefits of installing solar so they can\r\nmake informed decisions on whether solar is right for them,”\r\nhe said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe company suggests that before signing contracts with private\r\nsolar energy developers, customers talk with Georgia Power first so\r\nthey will know all their options and how their energy costs may be\r\naffected.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe company does not raise rates on customers who install solar\r\npower “behind the meter,” Kraft said, but the rates and\r\nplans are designed to be balanced and fair with the ultimate goal of\r\nproviding around-the-clock service.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nKraft confirmed that while the costs of producing electricity may\r\nfluctuate, the costs of maintaining the power lines, transformers\r\nand other facilities may be fixed.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nReally, Georgia Power? Still trotting out that old canard?\r\nBoth Austin Energy<\/a>\r\nand the state of Minnesota<\/a> years ago showed that local solar energy generation is actually\r\nreduces<\/em> wear on the utility’s lines because so much of the solar power is used behind the meter, reducing the amount of electricity going through the lines.\r\nPlus the more local solar power generation, the longer until the utility\r\nhas to add other sources of power generation, which delays and reduces expenses for financing such plants.\r\n

\r\nFor that matter, local solar generation at peak afternoon hours reduces\r\nGeorgia Power’s need to run its peaking power plants.\r\nOf course, that’s exactly what all the utilities are afraid of:\r\nthat local sun and wind power generation could turn their grid\r\ninto nothing but a big backup system<\/a>.\r\nThe same electric utility think tank Edison Electric Institute\r\nthat warned utilities back in 2013 that solar was going to eat their\r\nlunch if they didn’t get ahead of it\r\nalso \r\ncodified a net metering talking point that utilities are pushing to try to shade solar power<\/a>.\r\nA talking point that Georgia Power is still pushing three years later.\r\n

\r\nThe story curiously doesn’t mention Valdosta, which has for years had\r\n\r\nsolar panels at its Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and reputedly is building more at the site of its old Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant<\/a>.\r\nNor does it mention Darien, Georgia, which has been doing this since 2011<\/a>.\r\n

Your stock price is down 5.5% since your stockholder meeting, Southern Company, which is more than your annual dividend.\r\nTime to get on board for this sea change, Georgia Power, before you’re carried away by the tide!\r\n

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

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Power is still digging in its heels about solar power even for cities. Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers and Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning: it’s time for you to lead the southeast into the sun, not, like King Canute, to try to hold back the sea-change to solar power. A closer view of the […]","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":[8,18,24,55],"tags":[2861,1249,8881,6140,8701,8708,9855,9856,8702,12,7,3036,1024,8714,108,6339,6,294,8727,9854],"class_list":["post-18759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-solar","category-water","tag-net-metering","tag-austin-energy","tag-darien","tag-edison-electric-institute","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-jesup","tag-john-kraft","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-minnesota","tag-paul-bowers","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-tom-fanning","tag-valdosta","tag-wastewater","tag-water","tag-woodbine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4Sz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759","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=18759"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18763,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759\/revisions\/18763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}