{"id":3692,"date":"2013-05-30T03:55:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T07:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3692"},"modified":"2013-05-30T03:57:33","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T07:57:33","slug":"solarcity-disrupting-utilities-in-massachusetts-how-about-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/solarcity-disrupting-utilities-in-massachusetts-how-about-georgia.html","title":{"rendered":"SolarCity disrupting utilities in Massachusetts; how about Georgia?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nWhy is great big Southern Company afraid of tiny SolarCity?<br \/>\nLook at these 2.6KW of solar panels on a house in Bedford, Massachusetts.<br \/>\nThink about much more sun in Georgia, financed by Google and<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/110-mw-solar-financing-solarcity-and-goldman-sachs.html\"><br \/>\nGoldman Sachs<\/a>,<br \/>\nturning into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/georgia-missing-out-on-solar-jobs-behind-new-jersey-and-michigan.html\"><br \/>\nvotes for solar power<\/a>.<br \/>\nBig coal and nuclear boondoggles already<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/kemper-coal-crashes-southern-company-rating-and-stock-price.html\"><br \/>\ndon&#8217;t look so attractive anymore to investors<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBy Giles Parkinson wrote for Reneweconomy on 9 October 2012,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/2012\/solarcitys-big-challenge-prove-that-energy-bills-can-fall-57797\"><br \/>\nSolarCity\u2019s big challenge: Prove that energy bills can fall<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\n<a title=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Screen-Shot-2012-10-09-at-9.04.04-AM1.png\" href=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/2012\/solarcitys-big-challenge-prove-that-energy-bills-can-fall-57797\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" alt=\"A 2.6kW SolarCity installation in Bedford, Massachusetts\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Screen-Shot-2012-10-09-at-9.04.04-AM1.png\"><\/a><br \/>\nSolarCity sees the traditional utilities as their biggest<br \/>\ncompetition. &ldquo;We compete with them on price, predictability of<br \/>\nprice and the ease by which customers can switch to electricity<br \/>\ngenerated by solar systems,&rdquo; it says.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&ldquo;We have disrupted the industry status quo by providing<br \/>\nrenewable energy directly to customers for less than they are<br \/>\ncurrently paying for utility-generated energy. Unlike utilities, we<br \/>\nsell energy with a predictable cost structure that does not rely on<br \/>\nlimited fossil fuels and is insulated from rising retail electricity<br \/>\nprices. As retail prices for electricity increase and distributed<br \/>\nsolar energy costs decline, our market opportunity will grow<br \/>\nexponentially.&rdquo;\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/2012\/solarcitys-big-challenge-prove-that-energy-bills-can-fall-57797\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/reneweconomy.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Screen-Shot-2012-10-09-at-8.41.03-AM.png\"><\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Anthony Kim said the SolarCity<br \/>\nfiling could be a &ldquo;game-changing moment for the solar<br \/>\nindustry&rdquo; because it shows &ldquo;how plummeting component<br \/>\ncosts benefit a company operating on the downstream side of the<br \/>\nsolar business.&rdquo;\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThat article was posted before SolarCity&#8217;s stock went public, and<br \/>\nbefore<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/110-mw-solar-financing-solarcity-and-goldman-sachs.html\"><br \/>\nGoldman Sachs<\/a> invested half a billion dollars in SolarCity.<br \/>\nSix months later, we know Southern Company and Georgia Power<br \/>\nare paying attention, because both SO CEO Tom Fanning and<br \/>\nGeorgia Power CEO Paul Bowers said so at the<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/video-of-southern-company-shareholders-meeting-so-2013-05-22.html\"><br \/>\nSouthern Company stockholder meeting<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n -jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is great big Southern Company afraid of tiny SolarCity? Look at these 2.6KW of solar panels on a house in Bedford, Massachusetts. Think about much more sun in Georgia, financed by Google and Goldman Sachs, turning into votes for solar power. Big coal and nuclear boondoggles already don&#8217;t look so attractive anymore to investors. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8,18,23,24,1019],"tags":[6129,8704,8701,8708,6303,8702,12,661,8713,637,8714,8812,108],"class_list":["post-3692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-solarcity","tag-disruptive","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-massachusetts","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rooftop","tag-solar","tag-solarcity","tag-southern-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692","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=3692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3695,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions\/3695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}