{"id":467,"date":"2012-09-26T20:01:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T00:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/georgia-power-inches-towards-more-solar.html"},"modified":"2012-09-26T20:01:50","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T00:01:50","slug":"georgia-power-inches-towards-more-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/georgia-power-inches-towards-more-solar.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Power inches towards more solar, trailing New Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nIf you’re quick, you may be able to sell solar from your roof\nto Georgia Power.\nIf the PSC approves a pending request.\nIf you get in before that new quota gets filled.\nAnd if you’re a Georgia Power customer.\nThe rest of us?\nNot until the\n1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act\nis changed.\nUntil then, Georgia will continue to lag way behind New Jersey in solar power.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"210<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nWalter C. Jones wrote for the Augusta Chronicle today,\n\nGeorgia Power plans to triple solar power use<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nGeorgia Power filed Wednesday seeking permission from state\nregulators to more than triple the amount of solar power it uses to\ngenerate electricity for its 2.4 million customers by swapping it\nfor what was already planned from other renewable sources.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWhat “other renewable sources”?\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Georgia Power plan won’t affect rates because it is based on\npaying the solar providers what it would have paid the biomass\nprovider, 13 cents per kilowatt hour, which is already figured into\ncustomer’s rates.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOK, that’s good, because it means biomass is well and truly\ndead in Georgia.\nBut it also means Georgia Power isn’t very serious about solar,\nif all it’s doing is fiddling with accounting for the small amount\nof power biomass might have produced and not going for the real\nnumbers solar can produce.\nOK, how many solar megawatts?\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\nThe giant utility’s request to buy 210 megawatts of electricity was\napplauded by solar advocates.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe solar capacity will serve roughly 26,000 homes \u2014 less than\none-tenth of what the two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle will\nproduce.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nYet, as Sierra Club and Greenlaw point out in\n\na press release of today,<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n“This is a great first step from Georgia Power to tap our tremendous\n\n<\/a>\nsolar potential and make this clean resource a more significant part\nof our statewide power generation,\u201d said Colleen Kiernan,\ndirector of the Georgia Chapter of Sierra Club. \u201cBut this is\nonly a step. New Jersey installed 277 MW in the first half of this\nyear alone and Georgia Solar Utility has proposed 2,000 MW by 2016,\nnearly 10 times the current proposal from Georgia Power and the\nGPSC. This proposal only scratches the surface\u2014we can’t stop\nhere and let our potential go to waste.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThat’s right, New Jersey, much smaller and way to the north of here,\n\ninstalled 277 MW in the first half of 2012 alone<\/a>.\nEven that is less than the\n\n330 megawatts Georgia Power could have already deployed,<\/a>\non time and on budget,\n\n<\/a>\nfor the almost $1 billion the new nuke\ncost overruns so far.\nGeorgia Power and its parent\nSouthern Company (SO) say only about part of that cost overrun\nis due to them (the rest to contractors).\nSo this 210 MW is in that range.\nBut still way below\n\nthe 3,000 MW SO could have already built<\/a> with the $8.3 billion\nloan guarantee for the new nukes,\nwhich is more than the 2,200 MW nominal capacity of the two new nukes\ncombined, if they ever go online.\nInstead of playing late catchup,\nhow about leading the country for a change, Georgia Power and Southern Company?\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nGeorgia Power’s plan is to buy no more than 20 megawatts from any\none supplier and to purchase 10 megawatts of so-called distributed\npower in new contracts each of the next three years from homeowners\nor property owners looking to make a little money from their roof\nspace.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nTen megawatts?\nThat’s only 666 times the 15 kilowatts I’ve got on my farm workshop roof!\nI bet there are more than a few hundred home and business owners in Georgia\nwho would like to do this.\nAnd many of them with the most roof space or acreage are connected via EMCs,\nnot directly to Georgia Power.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\u201cThe program announced today offers a very limited program for\nhomeowners and business owners to install solar on their own\nroofs,\u201d said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the national\nSolar Energy Industries Association. \u201cDistributed solar must\nbe allowed to grow at a rate higher than 10 megawatts per year in\norder to create a truly sustainable market and jobs across the\nstate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\nThe solar association has lobbied for a different arrangement that\nwould allow property owners to rent their roofs to solar companies,\nwhich would sell the power back to them and then market any extra to\nGeorgia Power or neighboring homes. Georgia Power opposes changing\nthe law to allow that.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n“The law” would be the\n\n1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act<\/a>,\nwhich says you can sell any power you generate to your one and only\nelectric utility, at the rate it chooses to pay you.\n\n<\/a>\nIn New Jersey\n\na school can lease land to a solar company and lease back the 6.1 MW\nof power produced.<\/a>\nSuppose\n\nLowndes High School wanted to do that, where everybody travelling I-75 would see it.<\/a>\nNope, not in Georgia: the 1973 Electric Territorial Act says no.\nThere was an attempt in the legislature this year to change that, but\n\nGeorgia Power peddled the same old disinformation about solar power<\/a>\nand shut it down.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs Sierra Club and Greenlaw point out, and as Georgia Power\n\nsays on its own web pages:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n

\n…insolation values in Georgia are significant enough to support solar\nenergy systems in our state, with the southern two-thirds of Georgia\nhaving equivalent solar insolation values to most of the state of\nFlorida.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd all of Georgia has more insolation (sunlight falling on the surface)\nthan any of New Jersey.\nLet’s see, 2\/3 of Georgia’s 57,919 land square miles is about 38,612,\nor more than five times New Jersey’s 7,419 land square miles.\nNew Jersey doesn’t even have as many people (8.8 million) as Georgia\n(9.8 million).\nSo why is Georgia so far behind in solar power?\nMaybe soon Georgia Power and Southern Company help us all deploy solar\nin Georgia like we could, maybe by helping us modify\nthat 1973 Electric Territorial Law.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWhere could the money come from?\nIn addition to all the\n\nprivate venture capital<\/a> looking for\n\nsolar projects?<\/a>\nSierra Club and Greenlaw provide a clue:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nIn 2008 alone, Georgia sent $2.62 billion out of state and to South\nAmerica to import coal to be burned for electricity, at a cost of\n$270 per person statewide. Further, compared to multi-billion-dollar\ncoal and nuclear plants, solar electricity is stable, and even\ndeclining in price, since there are no ongoing fuel costs or\nexpensive facility retrofits.\n\n<\/a>\nSolar power can serve as a\ncost-effective alternative to traditional power generation in\nGeorgia.\nFinally,\nsolar power is a drought-proof energy resource\nthat does not need freshwater resources, unlike coal-fired plants,\nwhich use hundreds of millions of gallons of water across Georgia\neach day.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nCoal, natural gas, and biomass\n\nburn water.<\/a>\nSo does nuclear.\nPlant Vogtle already uses more water than all the agriculture in the surrounding\narea, and\nwith all 4 units,\n\nit will use more water than the city of Savannah.<\/a>\nSo instead of throwing more water on the bonfire of coal, natural gas,\nand nuclear, how about if we shift to no-water, no-fuel, no-pollution\nsolar and\n\nwind<\/a> energy starting now?\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’re quick, you may be able to sell solar from your roof to Georgia Power. If the PSC approves a pending request. If you get in before that new quota gets filled. And if you’re a Georgia Power customer. The rest of us? Not until the 1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act is changed. Until […]","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[97,202,556,120,216,14,16,17,8,18,2,19,20,104,21,22,32,23,24,55,36],"tags":[8736,8750,8779,8738,8753,8704,8706,8707,8701,8708,8699,8709,8702,8710,12,7,562,33,8737,8711,107,8712,8715,8713,8714,108,6,8727,8716],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-air","category-biomass","category-coal","category-economy","category-environment","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-water","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-agriculture","tag-air","tag-biomass","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-new-jersey","tag-nuclear","tag-planning","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-water","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-7x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","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=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}