Tag Archives: GA PSC

Solar up 50% over last year in Germany

July in Germany wasn’t a fluke: solar PV electricity production in Germany is up 50% over last year. Maybe we hould consider a Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) in Georgia like that in Germany. Unlike the Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge on Georgia Power bills for nuclear power people won’t get for years, if ever, FIT charges only apply after solar power is flowing.

Bloomberg Businessweek via AP 5 November 2012, German solar power production up 50 pct on year,

The German utilities’ industry association BDEW said Monday the solar power output rose to 25,000 gigawatt hours in the January to September period, from 16,500 gigawatt hours a year earlier.

It says solar power’s share in the country’s electricity production rose to 6.1 percent from 4.1 percent. Wind power gained slightly to 8.6 percent from 8.0 percent. Biomass plants accounted for almost 6 percent.

It says all renewable energies combined accounted for about 26 percent of electricity production over the first nine months.

Germany decided last year to phase out nuclear power by 2022 and replace it with renewable energies.

If you’re tired of Georgia Power and its parent Southern Company pouring your customer and tax dollars down that nuclear pit near the Savannah River, or if you’d just rather have solar or wind power, you can send in your CWIP charge as a separate check, with a note on it. Even if you’re not a Georgia Power customer, you can contact them or Southern Company (or the GA PSC or the legislature) about this.

-jsq

The power of going solar —John S. Quarterman

Solar panels on farm workshop --John S. Quarterman My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember to vote today or Tuesday. -jsq

This spring, the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of solar electricity. Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4 megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?

There’s plenty of private solar financing available. Also in New Jersey, a company installed 6 MW of solar on high school land and leased the power to the school supplying most of its needs win-win. You can go see a solar farm already working fine here, 200 kilowatts at Mud Creek Wastewater Plant. Why not do the same


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at Lowndes High School, where all the world on I-75 could see, attracting business to our community?

Why not?

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New solar in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida: where’s Georgia?

What are these new solar projects? Here are a few FERC lists, in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Florida, and there are more in Texas. Not so many in Georgia.

  • Zongyi Solar America’s 20 MW Tinton Falls Solar in Monmouth County, New Jersey, is online. Tinton Falls Solar is the largest photovoltaic project in New Jersey.
  • Southern Sky Renewable Energy LLC’s 5.6 MW Canton Landfill Solar Project in Canton County, Massachusetts is online. This photovoltaic project is built on the closed and capped Canton Landfill. It is the largest solar facility in New England. The electricity generated is sold to the Town of Canton under a long-term agreement.

New Jersey again! 20 Megawatts is even larger than the 6.1 MW at Lawrenceville School. And Massachusetts, even farther north. Let’s also look just south of us:

  • SunEdison’s 3.6 MW Phase 2 Lakeland Regional Airport Solar Project expansion in Polk County, Florida is online. The Lakeland Regional Airport Solar has a total capacity of 6.3 MW. It is the largest photovoltaic project in Florida. The electricity generated is sold under long-term contract to Lakeland Department of Electric Water Utilities.

Ah, but that’s illegal in Georgia! Here you can sell electricity only to your one and only monopoly utility, predetermined for you by the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act. Maybe we should change that?

The Lakeland Chamber of Commerce helped promote that solar project. Maybe better PR than feuding with the newspaper?

Also only slightly farther south of us, Continue reading →

Wind and solar were all the new U.S. electric generation in September 2012

Wind and sun provided all the new electric power generation deployed in September 2012. As Moore’s Law continues to decrease solar prices, solar power gets deployed still more rapidly, and wind also gets installed on time and on budget. Meanwhile, nuclear takes a three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool and hardly any new reactors get finished anyway.

Stephen Lacey wrote for TP Climate Progress 24 October 2012, Wind And Solar Make Up 100% Of New U.S. Electricity Capacity In September,

September was tied for the hottest of any September on record globally. It was also a very hot month for renewable energy in the U.S. According to figures from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, wind and solar accounted for all new electricity capacity added to America’s grid in September.

New wind is up 25% Jan-Sep 2012 over the same period last year, and new solar is up 78%. For comparison, new coal is Continue reading →

Softbank’s Son to install solar in Japan: watch out, Georgia Power!

The same Masayoshi Son who shook up Japan’s Internet market and is about to do the same in the U.S. is moving to modify Japan’s power market from nuclear to solar. Watch out, Georgia Power and Southern Company! If you don’t get a move on, Son-san will eat your lunch, too.

Mariko Yasu wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek 23 June 2011, Softbank’s CEO Wants a Solar-Powered Japan,

Masayoshi Son Billionaire Masayoshi Son made a fortune taking on Japan’s phone monopoly. Now he aims to shake up its power utilities after the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The 53-year-old chief executive officer of Softbank says he will build solar farms to generate electricity, with support from at least 33 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. He’s asking for access to transmission networks owned by the 10 regional utilities and an agreement that they buy his electricity. No other company has secured unlimited access to the those transmission networks. The utilities would not comment. Japan’s main business organization, the Keidanren, called for “careful analysis” before any drastic change in the power system took place.

If Japan ever felt ready to back Son’s ambitious plan, this is the moment. Radiation has spread across at least 600 square kilometers (230 square miles) in the northeast since the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. Outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in May he will rethink a plan to increase atomic power to 50 percent of the nation’s energy output from 30 percent. Renewable energy already accounts for 10 percent, according to Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Son wants to see that tripled by 2020. “The question is how this nation is going to survive after cutting nuclear power,” he said at a government panel meeting on June 12.

Complacent Georgia Power and SO, you maybe don’t think he can do it? NTT probably thought that, too:

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Solar yes, nuclear expansion no —David Staples for GA PSC

After he spoke at last Thursday’s Political Forum, David Staples said something interesting out in the hall and I asked him to repeat it for the video camera.

Here’s the video, followed by a transcript.

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2012.

Here’s the transcript:

I think right now we need to look at solar. The two new nuclear reactors probably shouldn’t be built right now. You look at the wholesale power rate curves, and where it’s most expensive, and it’s during peak hours. Wholesale power is 50 cents a kilowatt-hour, and the electric companies are buying at wholesale rates, What do we need to offset that with? We’ve got something to do that with: solar. The cost has come so far down that that’s something we should be spending our money on rather than than building nuclear reactors right now.

Solar PV costs dropped 50% last year.

Southern Company’s new nukes continue to run farther over budget.

If Denmark can do it maybe Southern Company and Georgia Power should stop manufacturing buggy whips and help get Georgia on the solar train.

Staples is on record for solar and as he says ethics matter: all the incumbent GA PSC members have taken campaign donations from people closely associated with the industries they regulate, (including Stan Wise) and Staples has apparently only accepted donations from clean sources.

-jsq

 

TV ad by Steve Oppenheimer for GA PSC

According to Ted Terry,

We are the first PSC campaign in over a decade to go up on the broadcast airwaves!

Here’s the video:

About those rate hikes: Georgia Power hikes prices for gas and nuclear, then complains about solar and We can charge you even if it’s cancelled! —CWIPped Georgia Power

About the GA PSC incumbents all accepting campaign contributions from people closely associated with the industries they regulate.

Steve Oppenheimer is on the record as wanting more energy efficiency and renewable energy (including solar energy).

-jsq

We can charge you even if it’s cancelled! —CWIPped Georgia Power

Steve Willis An excellent article about the problems with Georgia Power’s new nukes on the Savannah River gets at something you may not know: they can charge you for them even if they’re cancelled!

Steve Willis wrote for the Georgia Sierran Oct./Nov./Dec. 2012 page 5, Overruns, Uncertainty Plague Vogtle Expansion,

If Southern Company abandons this project, the CWIP law not only allows Southern Company to keep all of the CWIP payments legally extorted from customers, but allows them to keep CWIP fees in place or even increase them until all their costs and profits have been fully recovered. Due to the run-away cost overruns, the CWIP charge on your monthly bill is already more than three times what Southern Company confidently claimed it would be at this time when they presented their case to “your” Georgia legislature in 2009.

And that 2009 legislature rubberstamped CWIP so it appears on your Georgia Power bill as Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider. Willis reminds us that the 2 nukes already at Plant Vogtle were projected to be four nukes for $600 million and ended up being two for $9 billion.

Everyone has heard the saying “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” If the Vogtle expansion costs balloon, as many analysts expect, it will cost

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Georgia Power hikes prices for gas and nuclear, then complains about solar

Back in February, Georgia Power's natural gas Plant McDonough Georgia Power argued that a free market in solar power would cause price increases. Yet they already increased prices for natural gas and for nuclear plants that won’t produce electricity for years, if ever, and are already massively overbudget and behind schedule. Why should we believe them about solar when it’s their archaic projects they already are deploying that already have increased customer prices?

In February, Greg Roberts of Georgia Power argued,

Another reason is that the customers of Georgia Power, Georgia’s Georgia Power is the snail in the way of solar power in Georgia EMC’s and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia are paying for the poles and wires to transmit power, and the back-up generation to cover the electricity needs when the sun isn’t shining. These costs will have to be recovered from other customers not getting the privileged deal from the developer, raising everyone else’s rates.

While there are already numerous federal and state tax and other incentives for solar development in Georgia, it is still much more costly than the service provided by utilities. But what if third-party solar developers could get other electric customers in Georgia to foot the bill? That would be the result of this legislation.

It’s like asking Sally’s Café to pay the electric bill of Joe’s Cafe across the street, thus allowing Joe to undercut Sally’s prices.

Georgia Power well knows they could take a percentage of any power transmitted through their lines, so that wires and poles and backup generation argument is ludicrous. And as far as subsidies, how about this one, Georgia Power, Get the Facts, Investing in Georgia’s Energy Future:

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Another $3.5 billion nuclear cost overruns coming —David Staples @ HBA 2012-10-18

David A. Staples running for the Georgia Public Service Commission for District 5, talked about the ethical conflicts of the incumbents who take almost all of their campaign contributions from people associated with the utilities they regulate. Then he mentioned that the new nuclear reactors Georgia Power is building for Southern Company at Plant Vogtle have another $3.5 billion in cost overruns coming.

This is after the PSC incumbents just rubberstamped the Vogtle budget in August, and on top of the $900 million in cost overruns we already knew about. That $900 million was already more than 6% of the originally-projected $14 billion total cost. If it’s now $3.5 + $0.9 = $4.4 billion, that’s more than 31% over the original total. Maybe we should vote in some PSC members and legislators who will stop this nonsense.

Here’s the video:

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