Category Archives: VLCIA

L.A. rooftop solar sprawling power plant

The L.A. Times’ online poll is currently running 92% yes on “Is distributed generation the future of electric grids?” And Los Angeles is doing something about distributed rooftop solar power. Something we could be doing right here in south Georgia. If Georgia Power won’t do it, local governments could. After all, if the Industrial Authority can float bonds to buy land for business parks that sit vacant, it could float bonds to fund rooftop solar. Or maybe sell some of that land to pay for solar.

John Upton wrote for grist 27 June 2013, L.A. launches nation’s largest solar rooftop program,

The first small shoots of what will grow into a sprawling solar power plant have sprouted in Los Angeles.

L.A.’s Department of Water and Power is rolling out the country’s biggest urban rooftop program, which will pay residents for solar energy they produce in excess of their own needs. That will give residents a reason to install more solar capacity on their roofs than they can use in their homes.

According to Catherine Green in the L.A. Times yesterday, L.A. program lets DWP pay customers to generate solar power: Clean L.A. Solar’s goal is to add 150 megawatts, or enough to power 30,000 homes, to the city grids. Continue reading →

Budget Telling Tonight @ LCC 2013-06-25

Tonight you can go be told what the county’s budget will be, 5PM at the county palace. If you want to see the proposed budget, you’ll have to go their beforehand and view the one paper copy they are required by law to show you. They say they’re short of money, so why are they wasting taxpayer funds suing a legitimate business?

On the county’s online calendar: Budget Public Hearing (6/18/2013)

PUBLIC NOTICE
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing for the purpose of considering
the Fiscal Year 2014 proposed budget on the following dates:

June 18, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.

June 25, 2013 at 5:00 p.m.

Location:
Lowndes County Commission Chambers
327 N. Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA

A copy of the proposed budget is available for public review in the office of the County Clerk.
For questions please call 671-2400.

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT 19 June 2013, Lowndes County facing budget woes,

Continue reading →

Nine projects in the pipeline @ VLCIA 2013-06-18

Content two months running in VLCIA agendas! And the potential project list is up from six to nine.

Here’s the agenda:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda, Tuesday June 18, 2013 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →

Solar power in Japan to equal 7 nukes by end of this year

A Japanese feed-in tariff apparently provoked an explosion of solar power, making Japan head up towards China and Germany in installed solar power. Where is the U.S.? Where is Georgia, with much more sun than Japan? Maybe there is something more to learn from Fukushima after all, SO CEO Tom Fanning.

Michael Fitzpatrick wrote for Fortune 13 June 2013, Japan: The world’s new star in solar power; China and Germany have new competition at the top,


PV cell production and shipment (GWp) in Japan: Total (orange), Export (green), and Domestic (blue)
しばとも
According to a report by energy analyst IHS on Japan’s energy mix, Japan’s solar installations jumped by “a stunning 270% (in gigawatts) in the first quarter of 2013.” That means by the end of 2013 there will be enough new solar panels equal to the capacity of seven nuclear reactors. Such massive growth will allow Japan to surpass Germany and become the world’s largest photovoltaics (PV) market in terms of revenue this year.

How did this happen? Continue reading →

Content in today’s Industrial Authority agenda! @ VLCIA 2013-05-21

Names of projects! Lists of PR and marketing items! Is this a new trend from our Industrial Authority? Or will it be like the last time I complimented them on an agenda with content and was told later that one was an accident.

Here’s the agenda. Sure, the project names are codewords, but that’s how they talk to prospective companies without revealing all their cards to the competition. And this one has a name:

Maybe we’ll hear more about those two megawatts of solar power. Maybe even more are scheduled for Lowndes County.

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →

Solar Fedex in Buffalo

How many of the distribution centers here have solar panels on top? Or schools? Or government buildings? Or businesses? None. But sunny far-north-next-to-Canada Buffalo has them.

David Robinson wrote for Buffalo News 14 May 2013, FedEx groundbreaking gives region bragging rights: FedEx Trade Networks breaks ground on a new distribution center that development officials hope will lure more companies, jobs

FedEx Trade Networks began construction Tuesday on its new distribution center in the Town of Tonawanda, giving hope to local development officials that the company’s expansion will boost the Buffalo Niagara region’s efforts to become a distribution and logistics hub.

“It really drives home the value of this region as a center for logistics in the global economy,” said Kenneth Adams, president and chief executive officer of Empire State Development, the state’s main economic development agency.

“It plays to the inherent strength of the region,” Adams said. “There could be no better seal of approval for a logistics business in this location.”

We’ve got transportation and logistics and distribution centers here, but we don’t have this:

Fred Schardt, president of FedEx Trade Networks, said the environmental benefits of the company’s 14-acre site within the Riverview Solar Technology Park off River Road also were a selling point. “We understand the importance of doing business in an environmentally sustainable way. It’s very, very important for us,” he said. “This park allows this to happen.”

The FedEx building will include a 100-kilowatt solar array that will be integrated into the design of the structure. Those solar panels are expected to generate 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity during the term of the company’s lease, reducing the company’s consumption of fossil fuels by the equivalent of 80,000 gallons of gasoline, Montante said.

If Buffalo, a thousand miles to the north with much less sun, can do this, we can, too. Maybe if we did this, maybe in some of VLCIA’s industrial parks, maybe it would attract more businesses….

-jsq

Videos: audit, solar, office, and more @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

Interesting stuff (audit and internal controls, many meetings, 2 megawatts of solar power, searching for and finances of a new office from a mysterious seller) in the items missing from the posted agenda yet presented anyway, while two staff were elsewhere.

Here’s the agenda with a few notes and some links to the videos. * marks items that were not in the posted agenda.

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →

Arsenic, Outings, and Flooding: WWALS Watershed Coalition @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

Water issues strongly affect economic development, so I talked about the new WWALS Watershed Coalition at the 16 April 2013 Board Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.

The VDT declined to speak, so I did. After apologizing for no okra today, I commended the Authority for talking about the missing agenda items and for mentioning due diligence and flood control.

Mostly I talked about the new WWALS Watershed Coalition, www.wwals.net, incorporated in June 2012, which is about watershed issues such as flooding, water quality, and invasive species related to the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River System. I mentioned arsenic in some local well water, which the Department of Health has finally said should be tested, three years after Janet McMahan discovered it was a problem. I invited VLCIA board and staff to two upcoming WWALS events: Continue reading →

A New Home! Year Six @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

The Industrial Authority was very forthcoming about everything about their new office purchase except who they were buying it from; this was at the 16 April 2013 Board Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority. The seller turns out to be a household name hereabouts.

New Office –Roy Copeland

Chairman Roy Copeland talked about the at least five year process for finding “a new home” for VLCIA. 103 Roosevelt Drive He noted that before he joined the board they were considering buying a property he and his wife own. He and former Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk looked at another property near the Courthouse. VLCIA even toured the historic Lowndes County Courthouse but concluded it couldn’t be renovated for their purposes. Jerry Jennett noted the search had gone on even longer than five years. Copeland said the parameters they had set were, as far as he recalled, Continue reading →

Two more megawatts of local solar power! @ VLCIA 2013-04-16

One megawatt at DuPont and one megawatt at Valdosta’s Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant: that’s two more megawatts of solar power coming to Valdosta and Lowndes County! This was revealed at the 16 April 2013 Board Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.

Project Director Allan Ricketts was on a speaker phone, so Executive Director Andrea Schruijer gave the Existing Industry and Project Report. She thinks maybe three existing industry expansions in second and third quarter 2013. They’ve continued working with a pharmaceutical company about locating here; more on that later. Continued work with three renewable and sustainable energy companies, and Georgia Power is cooperating.

We did receive notification that two of those advanced solar initiatives have been approved by Georgia Power Company.

One of them is a megawatt solar expansion at DuPont. The other is a megawatt solar expansion at the City of Valdosta’s Mud Creek Wastewater Plant.

She didn’t mention that in most states such projects wouldn’t have to be approved for doled-out quotas by a power company.

Schruijer also talked about Continue reading →