{"id":4535,"date":"2013-07-05T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T16:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4535"},"modified":"2013-07-05T12:45:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T16:45:35","slug":"georgia-power-still-too-slow-on-solar-in-20-year-plan-psc-decides-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/georgia-power-still-too-slow-on-solar-in-20-year-plan-psc-decides-soon.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Power still too slow on solar in 20 year plan: PSC decides soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nGeorgia Power tries to continue whistling in the fossil and nuclear fuel\r\ndark while distributed solar power changes the world around it.\r\nThe Georgia Public Service Commission can decide differently,\r\nand will decide next week, 11 July 2013.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nJoshua Stewart\r\nwrote 2 July 2013,\r\n\r\nDecision Looms On Georgia Power Plan<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe state Public Service Commission votes next week on Georgia\r\nPower’s 20-year plan, the road map for providing electricity to 2.4\r\nmillion customers. That includes the mix of fuels the company will\r\nuse and the efforts the company undertakes to get customers to use\r\nless energy. This happens every few years. But this time, Georgia\r\nPower also wants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating\r\nunits at six power plants.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThis happens every few years. But this time, Georgia Power also\r\nwants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating units at six\r\npower plants.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPSC Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald said at a\r\nhearing in April that this version of Georgia Power’s plan “is\r\nfilled with the most-significant issues” of any Integrated Resources\r\nPlan in the last decade.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd Georgia Power avoids actually facing many of those issues:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“Taking into account the impact of MATS, as well as other\r\npending or potential regulations, the company’s analysis of its\r\ngenerating capacity has led to the conclusion that it is in the best\r\ninterests of customers to retire approximately 2,100 megawatts of\r\ngenerating resources,” said Kyle Leach, Georgia Power’s director of\r\nresource policy and planning.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhat a coincidence!\r\nThat’s almost exactly the same amount of power as\r\n\r\nthe 2,200 MW Southern Company rates the nukes it’s building at Plant Vogtle<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThose retirements completely shutter Plant Branch in Milledgeville,\r\nPlant Kraft in Savannah and Plant McManus in Brunswick.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Such a slate of retirements is unprecedented in the history\r\nof Georgia Power, and the company fully recognizes the impact these\r\ndecisions have on employees and the local communities,” Leach said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOh, really?\r\nAccording to\r\n\r\nGeorgia Power’s own online history<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn 2002, the company retired 11 generating units at three sites\r\nincluding all of the units at Plant Atkinson and Plant Arkwright and\r\ntwo units at Plant Mitchell.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nNow maybe Georgia Power means this is the most megawatts of coal\r\nretired at one time, and since that was (according to Southern Company)\r\n415 MW in 2002 and Georgia Power now proposes to close 2,100 MW of coal.\r\nBut they weren’t clear about that.\r\nPlus they’re converting many of these plants to natural gas,\r\nnot closing them completely.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAnd Georgia Power is also trying to socialize the costs even afterwards\r\neven for the plants they’re really closing:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nObservers say these retirements are good news for consumers as well\r\nas the environment. But Georgia Watch’s Liz Coyle has concerns about\r\nGeorgia Power still charging ratepayers for the use of the plants,\r\neven after they have shut down.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“They propose that those unusable units, their remaining\r\nvalue, be kept on the rate base books and we would continue to pay\r\nfor them long after those units have stopped producing power,”\r\nsaid Coyle, director of the consumer energy program at Georgia\r\nWatch. That means ratepayers keep paying for those plants as though\r\nthey’re still operating.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd instead of closing Plant McIntosh permanently after it\r\ndidn’t run at all in 2012, Georgia Power\r\nproposes to change the type of coal used there and to keep it open.\r\n

\r\nWalter C. Jones wrote for SavannahNow 22 May 2013,\r\n\r\nEnvironmental group has Plant McIntosh in their sights<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGeorgia Power is asking the Public Service Commission for permission\r\nto change the type of coal it burns, from Appalachian coal to the\r\nrelatively cleaner Powder River Basin variety.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n“This is unfortunate for the coastal residents,” she\r\n[Colleen Kiernan, director of the Georgia Chapter of Sierra Club]\r\nsaid.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nShe argues that the company should shutter McIntosh along with the\r\n15 other units across Georgia it already plans to close. Otherwise,\r\nKiernan said, it’s making faulty assumptions that the new type of\r\ncoal will remain economical.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We know that most of the easy coal to get has already been\r\nmined,” she said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile, Georgia Power wants to stick with the 210 MW of solar power\r\nit agreed to last year, for a total of 270 MW by 2016.\r\nThis is far too little to meet\r\nthe challenge of disruptive\r\ndistributed solar power\r\n\r\nspelled out by energy utility think-tank\r\nEdison Electric Institute<\/a>\r\nthat is already\r\n\r\ndowngrading Southern Company’s stock<\/a>\r\nwhile\r\nSO’s biggest part Georgia Power\r\n\r\nacts like telephone companies did back when the Internet exploded under them<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSierra Club members say Southern Company executives are merely\r\nfooling themselves and regulators to try to avoid change.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“The assumptions they are making are biased for coal,”\r\nshe said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Some<\/a>\r\nKiernan argues the company should instead adapt to the changing\r\nenergy landscape for the sake of its shareholders as much as for the\r\nenvironment.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“What we’re seeing is other utilities are moving into a\r\n21st-century business model, and that should concern\r\nshareholders,” she said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nEven\r\n\r\nGA PSC Bubba McDonald’s proposal to double the amount of solar power\r\nGeorgia Power will be required to buy<\/a>\r\nis nowhere near enough,\r\nunless GA PSC keeps doubling that requirement every year,\r\nbut at least it’s a start in the right direction.\r\nGeorgia Power, left to its own proposal, won’t even start,\r\nchoosing instead to keep holding Georgia back\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nbehind much less sunny states such as\r\n\r\nMichigan<\/a>,\r\n\r\nMassachusetts<\/a>,\r\n\r\nMaryland<\/a>, and\r\n\r\nNew Jersey<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt’s time for GA PSC to act like the Public<\/em> Service Commission\r\nand require Georgia Power to act like the public utility it is:\r\nmore solar now, and even less coal.\r\nOh, and no new nukes.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Power tries to continue whistling in the fossil and nuclear fuel dark while distributed solar power changes the world around it. The Georgia Public Service Commission can decide differently, and will decide next week, 11 July 2013. Joshua Stewart wrote 2 July 2013, Decision Looms On Georgia Power Plan, The state Public Service Commission […]","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[141,216,70,17,8,18,2,19,6124,104,23,24],"tags":[280,8745,8753,1037,6140,8728,8707,8701,8708,8699,8709,8702,12,7,632,6601,1603,25,562,33,8737,6479,6599,4927,6600,6528,6598,5508,107,8713,8714,6],"class_list":["post-4535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-co2","category-coal","category-ethics","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-history","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-bubba-mcdonald","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-distributed","tag-edison-electric-institute","tag-ethics","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-maryland","tag-masschusetts","tag-michigan","tag-moores-law","tag-natural-gas","tag-new-jersey","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-arkwright","tag-plant-atkinson","tag-plant-branch","tag-plant-kraft","tag-plant-mcintosh","tag-plant-mcmanus","tag-plant-mitchell","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1b9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535","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=4535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4537,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions\/4537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}