Tag Archives: Southern Company

“Great, big” SO is 1/10 Australia for solar farm deployment in Georgia

Solar Megawatts 2012-10-11 So if Southern Company is a “great, big company” similar to Australia, why did Australia just deploy a solar farm ten times the size of the biggest one SO has in Georgia?

Back in May, Southern Company (SO) CEO Thomas A. Fanning said:

From an energy standpoint, Southern Company is a little bit smaller, but similar to, the energy production profile of the nation of Australia. We are a great, big company from an energy production standpoint.

Meanwhile in Australia, Giles Parkinson wrote for Clean Technica 10 October 2012, Australia’s 1st Utility-Scale Solar Farm Now On!

At about 11am local time near the Western Australian town of Geraldton this morning, Australia’s first-utility scale solar farm was officially switched on.

It was a suitably sunny day (blighted by three million flies) and although just 10MW in size, and built courtesy of funding from the local government, a state-owned utility and by one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, it may presage a dramatic change in the way this country produces energy.

So what’s SO or Georgia Power’s biggest solar plant in Georgia? You remember, 1 MW in Upson.

OK, to be fair, that’s just Georgia Power. SO does have larger solar farms elsewhere, including

Now I know Georgia Power’s party line is that solar is only good in the U.S. southwest. But I don’t know how that explains Continue reading →

What Georgia Power is afraid of: GaSU and Dr. Smith; and you

So what is Georgia Power afraid of that made their CEO Paul Bowers double down on old-style baseload? Competition, that’s what! What could be more scary in the power-monopoly state of the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act?

GaSU sun On one side, Georgia Power faces GaSU and its 80 or 90 MW solar plant proposal. Walter C. Jones wrote for OnlineAthens 24 September 2012, Proposed solar company could stir up Georgia’s utility structure,

A proposal from a start-up business promises to lower electricity rates by rebating profits to customers if given a chance to compete as Georgia Power Co.’s “mirror image.”

GaSU fb profile image To proceed with its long-range plan of developing 2 gigawatts of solar power, the start-up, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., wants to start by building an 80-megawatt “solar farm” near Milledgeville as soon as it gets a green light from the Georgia Public Service Commission. GaSU filed its request last week, and as of Monday, it’s still too fresh for public evaluation.

So radical is the proposal that spokespersons for Georgia Power and the Georgia Solar Energy Association said they still were evaluating it and could not comment.

Groups that normally advocate for customers also are staying quiet.

GaSU executives recognize such a big change won’t come easily.

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Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years

Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear, coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years. What’s he scared of?

Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday, Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,

Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers in Georgia Trend, November 2011 “Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,” Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be 2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of the time.”

One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is air conditioning, which is why Roger Duncan of Austin Energy in 2003 Austin Energy flipped in one year from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop rebate program in the country. Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy. And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid, which left millions without power in the U.S. in June and hundreds of millions without power in India in July.

Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted; as recently as November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,

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Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool

The failed EDF nuke project at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland makes it clearer why Southern Company (SO) was the first company to get a nuclear permit in 30 years: it was the only one big enough and monopolistic enough to pull it off. Even then it’s such a bet-the-farm risk that even “great, big company” SO only dared to deploy its “great big huge scale“ equipment with the regulatory capture triple-whammy of a stealth tax on Georgia Power bills, PSC approval of cost overruns, and an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee:

  1. a legislated stealth tax in the form of a rate hike on Georgia Power customers for power they won’t get for years if ever. If you’re a Georgia Power customer, look on your bill for Nuclear Construct Cost Recovery Rider. You’ll find it adds about 5% on top of your Current Service Subtotal. Georgia is one of only a handful of states where such a Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge is legal thanks to our regulatory-captured legislature. Doubling down on bad energy bets, Southern Company is also trying to use CWIP to build a coal plant in Mississippi.
  2. A captive Public Service Commission that rubber-stamps costs for Plant Vogtle. In case there was any doubt as to the PSC’s role in legitimizing those new nukes, the very next day Fitch reaffirmed Southern Company’s bond ratings.

    Southern Company’s regulated utility subsidiaries derive predictable cash flows from low-risk utility businesses, enjoy relatively favorable regulatory framework in their service territories, and exhibit limited commodity price risks due to the ability to recover fuel and purchased power through separate cost trackers.

    Translation: Georgia Power customers subsidize SO’s bonds and SO shareholders’ stock dividends. The PSC also approved cost overruns being passed on to Georgia Power customers, and those nukes are already over $400 or $900 million, depending on who you ask. What do you expect when 4 out of 5 Public Service Commissioners apparently took 70% of their campaign contributions from utilities they regulate or their employees or their law firms, and the fifth commissioner took about 20% from such sources? Hm, there’s an election going on right now!
  3. An $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee. Even that’s not good enough for SO and Georgia Power: SO is asking for less down payment.

And what if even one of that three-legged regulatory capture stool’s legs went away? Continue reading →

Georgia Power inches towards more solar, trailing New Jersey

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 then, Georgia will continue to lag way behind New Jersey in solar power.

210 MW is more than 50 MW but way less than 3,000 MW

Walter C. Jones wrote for the Augusta Chronicle today, Georgia Power plans to triple solar power use,

Georgia Power filed Wednesday seeking permission from state regulators to more than triple the amount of solar power it uses to generate electricity for its 2.4 million customers by swapping it for what was already planned from other renewable sources.

What “other renewable sources”?

The Georgia Power plan won’t affect rates because it is based on paying the solar providers what it would have paid the biomass provider, 13 cents per kilowatt hour, which is already figured into customer’s rates.

OK, that’s good, because it means biomass is well and truly dead in Georgia. But it also means Georgia Power isn’t very serious about solar, if all it’s doing is fiddling with accounting for the small amount of power biomass might have produced and not going for the real numbers solar can produce. OK, how many solar megawatts?

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Southern Company: let’s do the renewable energy study for Georgia

Mark Z. Jacobson's study shows offshore wind is plentiful from Virginia to Maine Let's do the study for Georgia! Southern Company brags about its private R&D:

Research & Development (since the 1960s)

  • Awarded more than $1.3 billion to conduct more than $3.8 billion of research and development.
  • Qualified for $412 million of investment tax credits for a 21st century coal plant being built in Mississippi.

OK, SO, let's see you do the study to show what we can really do with conservation, efficiency, wind, sun, and less natural gas than we have now. Sure, in the Georgia Bight we do have to contend with hurricanes. But a "great, big company" like SO should be able to focus its vaunted private R&D on that problem and solve it.

Maybe SO doesn't want to do that because the result might show there is no need for any coal plants, nor new natural gas plants, nor any nuclear plants, which would mean Georgia Power would have to give up its nuclear-funding rate-hike stealth tax and SO would have to give up its $8.3 billion loan guarantee. Hey, we might even need to change the 1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act, and that might damage Georgia Power's guaranteed profit! Nevermind that Georgia Power and SO might make more profit if they got out in front on solar and wind power and a smart grid.

If SO won't do it, how about we elect some Public Service Commissioners and legislators who will? For jobs, energy independence, and profit, oh, and clean air and plenty of water!

-jsq

All U.S. east coast electricity could come from offshore wind 3 seasons out of 4

Why build nukes when wind can provide 3/4 of our power? While Southern Company claims to be “a company that is engaged in offering solutions, not just rhetoric”, yet does nothing about wind off the Georgia coast, researchers in far California have demonstrated we can get 3/4 of all needed east coast electricity from offshore wind.

Bjorn Carey wrote for Stanford Report 14 September 2012, Offshore wind energy could power entire U.S. East Coast, Stanford scientists say

A new analysis by Stanford researchers reveals that there is enough offshore wind along the U.S. East Coast to meet the electricity demands of at least one-third of the country.

The scientists paid special attention to the Maine-to-Virginia corridor; the historical lack of strong hurricanes in the region makes it a favorable site for offshore wind turbines. They found that turbines placed there could satisfy the peak-time power needs of these states for three seasons of the year (summer is the exception).

“We knew there was a lot of wind out there, but this is the first actual quantification of the total resource and the time of day that the resource peaks,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford who directed the research. “This provides practical information to wind farm developers about the best areas to place turbines.”

Mark Z. Jacobson already worked out a framework for powering the entire world from wind, water, and sun alone. The late John Blackburn, Ph.D., showed us how to power North Carolina with sun, wind, and hydro, plus less natural gas than NC uses now. Now Jacobson is working out the details of implementation.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Seth Gunning.

Germany Added 543 MW of Solar Power Capacity in July

While we in Georgia were still pouring money down that nuclear pit near the Savannah River, Germany has been getting on with real renewable energy. We could have deployed almost that much solar power with just the cost overruns so far at Plant Vogtle.

Nicholas Brown wrote for Clean Technica 8 September 2012, Germany Added 543 MW of Solar Power Capacity in July,

According to Matt McDermott of Treehugger: “[In] the first half of 2012 Germany has installed just over 4.37 gigawatts of grid-tied solar power. Remarkably just about 1.8 GW of that happened in June alone (perhaps even more remarkable, this isn’t even a record amount for one month in Germany).”

The amount of solar power capacity added in June was much more than July’s, but July’s was still impressive. July’s addition brings Germany’s total installed capacity for the first half of 2012 to 4,900 MW (4.9 GW).

This impressive solar installation rate had a lot to do with Germany’s famous Feed-in Tariffs (FIT), but it also had a lot to do with Moore’s Law, illustrated by that graph of cost per kilowatt rapidly going down.

543 MW? That’s more than the 330 MW of solar the $913 million cost overrun at Plant Vogtle in the first half of 2012 could have bought. 1800 MW in June and 543 MW in July? That’s 2343 MW, which is more than the entire rated 2200 MW output of Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 put together, if they ever get built. Sure, the sun doesn’t shine all the time, but in the years until the nukes ever get built (if ever), how much solar could we deploy at the rate of one Vogtle unit equivalent a month?

Hey, maybe we should cancel Plant Vogtle and deploy solar instead! Maybe Georgia Power and Southern Company will realize their big bet has already gone bad. Or maybe we should elect some Public Service Commissioners and legislators who will get them to realize it.

-jsq

 

Change the Atomic Energy Act? How about change the Georgia Electric Territorial Act?

In reaction to the NRC denying a nuclear permit for Calvert Cliffs, some nuclear backers suggest changing the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to permit majority foreign ownership of nuclear reactors. What will they suggest next? Asking Iran to invest in U.S. nukes?

Steve Skutnik wrote for http://theenergycollective.com 5 September 2012, A cost-free way to open up nuclear investment,

If this seems entirely backward in a world of global production and investment, that’s because it is. The current regulation is an artifact of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which first authorized private ownership of nuclear facilities. (Prior to this—per the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, all nuclear technology was considered a state secret, during the short time in which the U.S. enjoyed a monopoly on the technology.)

Is there any real compelling reason for restrictions on foreign ownership and investment in nuclear facilities to exist at a time when the U.S. holding a monopoly on the technology has long since passed? Issues of safety here of course are irrelevant—the facilities would be licensed and regulated by the NRC, just as any other nuclear facility is now. About the only salient objection is the political one—i.e., the implications of a foreign entity maintaining controlling ownership in key infrastructure. (Although it’s hard to see anyone getting particularly upset about the reverse—U.S. entities owning a controlling stake in infrastructure in other nations.)

Yeah, sure, strict regulation will deal with that, just like it prevents fracking from setting drinking water on fire, or BP from poisoning the Gulf. The new NRC head is maybe well-meaning, but it’s the same NRC that gave Vogtle 1 a clean bill just before it had to shut down and the same NRC that’s ignoring cancer in Shell Bluff.

Oh, by the way, the article gets to the main point eventually:

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NRC rejects nuke permit for EDF in Maryland

French nuclear operator Électricité de France (EDF) was denied a license last week for the proposed Calvert Cliffs nuclear reactor in Maryland, because the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 prohibits majority foreign ownership of nuclear plants. EDF now has 60 days to find a U.S. partner, or give up the project. Who could the possible suitors be? Hint: think southeast.

The handwriting was on the wall two years ago when Constellation Energy pulled out of the project. Jim Polson and Alan Katz wrote for Bloomberg 10 October 2010, Constellation Drops Nuclear Plant, Denting EDF’s U.S. Plans,

Constellation Energy Group Inc. pulled out of negotiations on a $7.5 billion loan guarantee to build a nuclear reactor in Maryland with Electricite de France SA, potentially damaging the French utility’s U.S. expansion plans and the companies’ partnership.

The cost of the U.S. government loan guarantee that the companies’ joint venture, UniStar Nuclear Energy, would need to build the Calvert Cliffs 3 reactor is too high and creates too much risk for Constellation, the Baltimore-based utility said in a statement yesterday. The statement said the next step is up to EDF. Enlarge image U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman

In a letter Oct. 8 to Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Constellation said it received a government estimate that the venture would have to pay about $880 million to the U.S. Treasury for the loan guarantee, “dramatically out of line with both our own independent assessments and of what the figure should reasonably be.”

Constellation’s decision may make it more likely that the U.S. utility will exercise a put option forcing EDF to buy as much as $2 billion of Constellation’s non-nuclear power plants, said Ingo Becker, head of utilities sector research at Kepler Capital Markets.

“EDF very clearly said if they exercise the put, this thing is over,” Becker said. “Constellation may have just turned around the calendar and pulled out of the new build before exercising the put, anticipating EDF’s reaction.”

In a letter Oct. 8 to Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Constellation said it received a government estimate that the venture would have to pay about $880 million to the U.S. Treasury for the loan guarantee, “dramatically out of line with both our own independent assessments and of what the figure should reasonably be.”

Meanwhile, Southern Company is still trying to reduce what it has to pay for its $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee.

Back in Maryland, the news got worse for the nuke last year. EDF asked for the state’s help, but didn’t get the answer it wanted. Scott Dance wrote for Baltimore Business Journal 16 December 2011, EDF: Constellation-Exelon settlement hurts Maryland nuclear industry,

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