{"id":522,"date":"2012-09-02T12:03:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T16:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/where-would-georgia-solar-utilities-inc-get-enough-land-for-80-mw-solar-generation.html"},"modified":"2012-09-02T12:03:46","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T16:03:46","slug":"where-would-georgia-solar-utilities-inc-get-enough-land-for-80-mw-solar-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/where-would-georgia-solar-utilities-inc-get-enough-land-for-80-mw-solar-generation.html","title":{"rendered":"Where would Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. get enough land for 80 MW solar generation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\n\"Plant<\/a>\nWhere will\nGeorgia Solar Utilities Inc.\nget\n\nthe 2,200 acres it says it needs to build 80 MW of solar generation?<\/a>\nWell, it’s supposed to be “adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.”, so let’s look there.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Plant<\/a>\nA\n\nbrochure on Plant Branch by Georgia Power<\/a>\n(undated, but last date mentioned is 1998, so I’m guessing 1999)\nsays:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nLocated on 1,900 acres on Lake Sinclair in Putnam County between\nEatonton and Milledgeville, Plant Branch was the first\nmillion-plus-kilowatt electric generating station to operate on the\nGeorgia Power system. It is named for Harllee Branch Jr., former\nchairman of the board of Southern Company and president of Georgia\nPower. Construction on the plant began in 1961, and by the summer of\n1969,\n\n\"Coal<\/a>\nfour units were in operation. The 1,539,000 kilowatts\ngenerated by Plant Branch provides enough electrical power for\n342,000 households.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd now Plant Branch will be among the first to close coal-generating\nunits.\nAccording to\nMelissa Stiers for GPB News 12 July 2011,\n\nGeorgia Power Closing Three Plants<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nTwo coal fired units at Plant Branch in Milledgeville will close in\n2013. That’s a result of federal regulation tightening air pollution\ncontrols. The company has said it’s too costly to upgrade those\nunits.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n\"Plant<\/a>\nAs we know, Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company\n\nclaimed it was incompetent to deal with the new EPA regulations<\/a>\neven though it had already announced the Plant Branch closures (amounting to about 770 MW),\nand later SO announced\n\n4,000 MW of coal plant closures.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nWhile the various news stories keep saying Plant Branch is in Milledgeville,\nactually, it’s on the other side of Lake Sinclair, closer to Eatonville,\n\n\"Plant<\/a>\nand in Putnam County.\nA quick glance at the\n\nPutnam County Tax Assessor database maps<\/a>\nshows that the land parcel containing Plant Branch\nis 913.87 acres, much of which isn’t actually used by the plant.\nAnd Georgia Power owns a total of more than 3,000 acres adjacent\nto that site.\nSo I’m guessing the 2,200 acres figure is simply around 3,100 total\nGeorgia Power acres minus 913 acres for the present Plant Branch site.\n<\/p>\n

\nEstimates for land needed for a megawatt of solar power generation range\n\n\n\n\"Deer\"<\/a>\n\n\"In<\/a>\n\nfrom 5 to 9 acres.<\/a>\nI usually use 6 acres \/ solar MW as a rule of thumb,\nwhich would be 480 acres for 80 MW.\nSuppose it’s 7 acres \/ solar MW: that’s 560 acres.\nEven at 9 acres \/ solar MW that’s only 720 acres.\nSo there’s plenty of room on land Georgia Power already owns\nfor an 80 MW solar plant without unduly disturbing the woods or the deer.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith Moore’s Law continuing to push down the price of solar generation,\n\n<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nGaSU’s proposed plant is just the first of utility-scale solar\nplants we’re going to see proposed while Georgia Power and SO\nare frittering away Georgia Power customer dollars paying in advance\nfor that nuclear boondoggle at Plant Scherer.\nAnd there is plenty of\n\nprivate investment ready to go for solar plants<\/a>,\nas GaSU has demonstrated,\nwithout needing the GA PSC to approve cost overruns being paid for by\nGeorgia Power customers, and without any $8.3 billion loan guarantee,\nall unlike the nuke boondoogle.\n<\/p>\n

\nNext to Plant Branch is a sensible location for a utility-scale\nsolar power plant because the power lines already go there.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Plant<\/a>\nHowever, if\nGeorgia Solar Utilities (GaSU)\nreally is planning to use land owned by Georgia Power,\nit seems as if GaSU needs to get agreement from Georgia Power to do that.\nWhich means the Georgia Public Service Commission (GA PSC) needs to\nconvince Georgia Power to do that.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere’s an election going on right now.\nMaybe we should elect some Commissioners and legislators who will make it so.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhile we’re at it,\n\nlet’s modify<\/a> that\n\n1973 Georgia Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>\nso that not only can utilities like GaSU set up shop without having\nto go hat-in-hand to Georgia Power or GA PSC,\n\n<\/a>\nso that also you and I can\n\nput solar panels on our own rooftops or parking lots<\/a>\nand sell the power on an open market!\nThe 80 MW GaSU is proposing is less than the 770 MW Georgia Power is closing,\nbut if we could all profit by distributing solar generation\non surfaces that now cost money\nto air condition, we could quickly replace that 770 MW or even the total of 4,000 MW of coal generation\nSouthern Company says it’s closing: replace it with clean solar power that requires\nno water to cool and no fuel to burn!<\/p>\n

\nAsk yourself,\n\ndoes Georgia Power own the sunshine?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where will Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. get the 2,200 acres it says it needs to build 80 MW of solar generation? Well, it’s supposed to be “adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.”, so let’s look there. A brochure on Plant Branch by Georgia Power (undated, but last date mentioned is […]","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":[216,142,14,17,8,18,2,20,104,21,22,23,24],"tags":[8753,8746,8704,8707,8701,8708,101,8699,1771,8710,25,8737,8711,8712,1592,8713,8714,108],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-cwip","category-economy","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-law","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-coal","tag-cwip","tag-economy","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-georgia-solar-utilities","tag-government","tag-lake-sinclair","tag-law","tag-moores-law","tag-nuclear","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-putnam-county","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-8q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","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=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}