{"id":20891,"date":"2019-03-14T15:37:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T19:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=20891"},"modified":"2019-03-14T15:38:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T19:38:30","slug":"solar-power-in-georgia-2019-03-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/solar-power-in-georgia-2019-03-14.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar power in Georgia 2019-03-14"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nHow much solar power is there in Georgia?\r\nQuite a bit, and it’s everywhere, according to Georgia Energy Data map<\/a> by Southface.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Georgia,<\/a>\r\n
Gold disks indicate individual solar installations; green disks separate into many when zoomed.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThere are three 1 megawattt (MW) solar farms in Berrien County\r\nI didn’t know about, and more elsewhere in the Suwannee River Basin,\r\nin almost every county.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Suwannee<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThey even have my two in Lowndes County, which I count as 3 MW and 12 MW AC,\r\nbut for some reason they rate as somewhat more megawatts and in DC.\r\n

\r\nIn and around Valdosta there are enough that more panning and zooming than this\r\nwould be required to look at all of them.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Valdosta,<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAccording to Southface there are 1,961 solar installations in Georgia,\r\nwith 1,321.79 MW of capacity,\r\nand annual solar production of 1,976,039.37 megawatt hours (MWh).\r\n

\r\nHow much of solar power in Georgia is at military bases?\r\nWell, that map does not seem to include any of the military\r\nsolar installations, at least a quick pan shows nothing at Moody AFB, Fort Stewart, or Kings Bay.\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Power, press release, 16 May 2017,\r\n\r\nGeorgia Power announces new 139-MW solar project at Robins Air Force Base<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nATLANTA, May 16, 2017 \/PRNewswire\/ — Georgia Power has\r\nannounced plans to build a new 139 megawatt (MW) solar facility\r\nadjacent to Robins Air Force Base (AFB) in Warner Robins, Georgia,\r\njust south of Macon. The project was approved Tuesday by the Georgia\r\nPublic Service Commission (PSC) and will be the sixth large-scale\r\nsolar project to be developed by Georgia Power working with the\r\nUnited States military and the Georgia PSC. The Warner Robins\r\nfacility will be the largest single solar project to date to be\r\nconstructed by Georgia Power….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Power currently owns and operates 120 MW of large-scale\r\nsolar facilities now online at Georgia military bases, including\r\nprojects with the U. S. Army at Fort Benning, Fort Gordon and Fort\r\nStewart and with the Department of the Navy at SUBASE Kings Bay. In\r\naddition, the company is currently building a 31 MW solar facility\r\nat Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo 139 + 120 = 259 MW of military solar power in Georgia.\r\nAdd that to the other 1,321.79 MW for 1,580.79 MW.\r\nWhich is very close to what SEIA says<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Solar\r\n

\r\nData Current Through:<\/strong> Q4 2018\r\n

\r\nSolar Installed (MW):<\/strong> 1,570.83\r\n

\r\nNational Ranking:<\/strong> 11th (35th in 2018)\r\n

\r\nEnough Solar Installed to Power:<\/strong> 188,015 homes\r\n

\r\nPercentage of State’s Electricity from Solar:<\/strong> 1.72%\r\n

\r\nSolar Jobs:<\/strong> 3,696\r\n

\r\nSolar Companies in State:<\/strong> 259 (51 Manufacturers, 110 Installers\/Developers, 98 Others)\r\nTotal Solar Investment in State:<\/strong> $2,209.82 million\r\n

\r\nPrices have fallen<\/strong> 47% over the last 5 years\r\n

\r\nGrowth Projection and Ranking:<\/strong> 2,297 MW over the next 5 years (ranks 10th)\r\n

\r\nNumber Of Installations:<\/strong> 1,640\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nClose enough for my purposes, which is to get some ballpark estimates, not exact figures.\r\n

\r\nNow divide 139 by 1,580.79 for 8.8% military solar power in Georgia.\r\n

\r\nSure, there are plenty of other solar-powered military bases,\r\nmany of them\r\n\r\nin the southeast, handled by Southern Company<\/a>:\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"2015<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\nPentagon Partnership<\/a>, Southern Company, unknown date.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe U.S. Dapartment of Defense\r\nis the world’s largest user of fossil fuels, so military use of solar is to be commended, with Georgia leading the way.\r\n

\r\nBut that Warner Robins plant is not the largest in Georgia.\r\nFor example,\r\nKelsey Misbrener, Solar Power World, 9 November 2018,\r\n\r\nFirst Solar starts construction on largest solar plant in Georgia<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLeaders representing the coalition of organizations contributing to\r\nthe largest solar power plant in Georgia gathered today to celebrate\r\nstart of construction. The ceremonial groundbreaking brought\r\ntogether state officials, Georgia Power, Georgia Public Service\r\nCommission, Twiggs County Commission, Origis Energy and First Solar\r\nrepresentatives to extoll the benefits of the 200-MW, GA Solar 4\r\nproject, located in Twiggs County, Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Power doesn’t have to and does not build all the solar power installations\r\nit buys power from.\r\n

\r\nAnd there are a couple dozen Georgia\r\n\r\nElectric Membership Cooperatives (EMCs)<\/a>,\r\n“member-owned, not-for-profit utilities that serve approximately 4.4 million of Georgia\u2019s 10 million residents and 73 percent of the state\u2019s land area.”\r\nMany solar farms connect to EMCs, rather than to Georgia Power.\r\n

\r\nSo, Georgia Power does not run the whole story of solar power in Georgia,\r\nand military solar power in Georgia is only a small fraction of the story.\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>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How much solar power is there in Georgia? Quite a bit, and it’s everywhere, according to Georgia Energy Data map by Southface. Gold disks indicate individual solar installations; green disks separate into many when zoomed. There are three 1 megawattt (MW) solar farms in Berrien County I didn’t know about, and more elsewhere in 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":[18,570,24],"tags":[10693,2990,8701,8708,8702,12,7,8783,8784,26,8714,108,5964,6,1201],"class_list":["post-20891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia-power","category-military","category-solar","tag-electric-membership-cooperative","tag-emc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-military","tag-moody-afb","tag-seia","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-southface","tag-valdosta","tag-warner-robins-afb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-5qX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20891","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=20891"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20894,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20891\/revisions\/20894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}