{"id":235,"date":"2012-12-27T17:19:59","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T22:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/industrial-authority-working-for-solar-in-south-georgia-vlcia-2012-12-18.html"},"modified":"2012-12-27T17:19:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T22:19:59","slug":"industrial-authority-working-for-solar-in-south-georgia-vlcia-2012-12-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/industrial-authority-working-for-solar-in-south-georgia-vlcia-2012-12-18.html","title":{"rendered":"Industrial Authority working for solar in south Georgia @ VLCIA 2012-12-18"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThe
\n
\nIndustrial Authority<\/a>
\nis working to find locations for some of the
\n210 MW Georgia Power got the PSC to shift
\nfrom biomass to solar<\/a> back in September.
\nThat’s a good next step.\n<\/p>\n

\nJason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 23 Dec 2012,
\n
\nSolar power push has Authority working to establish connections<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nSince the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia
\n
\n\"Allan<\/a>
\nPower Company’s plan Nov. 20 to add 210 megawatts of solar power to
\nits electrical grid, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial
\nAuthority has been devising strategies to draw solar energy
\nproducers to South Georgia.\n<\/p>\n

\nGeorgia Power will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) from solar
\nenergy collection and production companies in early 2013, according
\nto the PSC, and the company will contract with the lowest bidders to
\npurchase their energy and place it on the Georgia Power electrical
\ngrid for public consumption.\n<\/p>\n

\nGeorgia Power plans to add 90 megawatts to its grid from distributed
\ngeneration (small companies producing between 100 kilowatts and 1
\nmegawatt), and 120 megawatts of large utility-scale projects
\nproducing up to 20 megawatts each. The company plans to price the
\nsolar energy at $0.13 per kWh for distributed generation and up to
\n$0.12 per kWh for utility-scale projects, according to the PSC.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis government-approved commercial push for solar energy could be a
\nboon to sunny South Georgia as well as the greater Valdosta area
\nspecifically, and the Authority is prepared to accommodate the solar
\nenergy producers they expect.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\"Andrew<\/a>
\n\u201cI think there’s a very good possibility of solar energy
\ncoming to South Georgia,\u201d Executive Director Andrea Schruijer
\nsaid. \u201cPossibly in the near future.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThere’s more in the VDT story.
\nIt’s pretty much what
\nCol. Ricketts also told me after the VLCIA meeting Tuesday a week ago.
\nHe asked me if I knew what “distributed” meant.
\nI pointed out Georgia Power’s version of distributed was actually not
\nvery distributed, compared to<\/p>\n


\nother places.
\nIf
\nBangladesh is so distributed most installations aren’t even on the grid,<\/a>
\nthe
\n
\nrooftop solar for grid outage independence<\/a>
\nbeing proposed after Hurricane Sandy
\nis more what we could use around here,
\nlike
\n
\nAustin Energy did way back in 2003.<\/a>
\nI can attest it works; my smaller set of solar panels has batteries,
\nand many an outage they’ve weathered fine.
\n
\n<\/a>
\nThere’s also distributed like
\non Bainbridge Island City Hall<\/a>
\nor the solar panels
\n
\nthat could be on top of Lowndes High,<\/a>
\nshowing everybody on I-75 that our community is progressive.\n<\/p>\n

\nI agree with Col. Ricketts that working with Georgia Power to
\nsite some of those medium size solar plants in south Georgia
\nis a good thing.
\nHowever,
\n
\nas Moore’s Law continues to push solar prices down and deployments up,<\/a>
\nGeorgia Power’s 210 MW attempt
\n
\nto head off big competition from GaSU’s proposed 90 MW solar plant<\/a>
\nwill increasingly be seen as not nearly enough.
\nAs Col. Ricketts pointed out, the proposed
\n
\nsolar business park in Decatur County<\/a>
\nis going nowhere without a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).
\nAnd as long as Georgia Power gets to dole out PPAs
\nbecause of that
\n
\n1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>
\n
\n<\/a>
\nGeorgia will continue to lag behind places like
\n
\nNew Jersey,
\nMassachusetts,<\/a>
\nand Germany that are much farther north with much less sunshine
\nthan sunny south Georgia where we need to get on with
\n
\njobs for electricians, plumbers, truck drivers,<\/a> architects, and
\nprofessors in installing truly distributed solar power.\n<\/p>\n

\nI commend the Industrial Authority on working with Georgia Power
\nfor those mid-size solar PPAs.
\nAnd even more for doing their own PR about it.
\nThis is a marvelous improvement over less than
\ntwo years ago when I had to ask via LTE in the VDT,
\nplus personal appearance before the VLCIA board,
\nplus a written direct letter,
\n
\nWhat is your plan?<\/a>
\nand
\n“…you are willing to do publicity. Why not do it for real clean energy,
\nand on a much larger scale?”
\nNow they have a plan, and they are doing publicity for it.
\nExcellent!\n<\/p>\n

\nHm, I mentioned rooftop solar in Austin, Houston, and Raleigh back then, too.
\nMaybe we’ll get distributed here soon.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Industrial Authority is working to find locations for some of the 210 MW Georgia Power got the PSC to shift from biomass to solar back in September. That’s a good next step. Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 23 Dec 2012, Solar power push has Authority working to establish connections, Since the Georgia Public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,17,8,18,558,2,19,20,21,22,23,24,53,3,133,178],"tags":[1034,193,187,190,184,192,1037,8704,188,8707,102,8701,8708,8781,8699,8709,189,186,548,8702,8710,12,7,197,185,25,181,198,8711,8712,1035,1036,194,196,502,8713,637,183,195,8714,1038,8725,971,182,191,8700,6,180,8742,8749],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-germany","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sustainability","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","tag-18-december-2012","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-andrea-schruijer","tag-attorney","tag-chairman","tag-cpa","tag-distributed","tag-economy","tag-executive-director","tag-ga-psc","tag-gasu","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-germany","tag-government","tag-history","tag-j-stephen-gupton","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lu-williams","tag-mary-gooding","tag-moores-law","tag-norman-bennett","tag-operations-manager","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-power-purchase-agreement","tag-ppa","tag-project-manager","tag-public-relations-marketing-manager","tag-regular-meeting","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rooftop","tag-roy-copeland","tag-s-meghan-duke","tag-solar","tag-solar-farm","tag-sustainability","tag-territorial-electric-service-act","tag-tom-call","tag-tom-davis","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}