Sun Dancing – Georgia Trend

By 2015, Georgia’s total solar capacity should multiply more than 10 times, thanks to the initiative of the mammoth public utility corporation usually cast as renewable energy’s staunchest opponent.

“We always look for cost-effective ways to add renewables to our portfolio, and when we move, we do it in a significant way,” says Ervan Hancock, manager of renewable and green strategies for Georgia Power, the investor-owned utility that is adding 210 megawatts of solar capacity over the next two years through its Advanced Solar Initiative (ASI). That’s in addition to the 61 megawatts that were already under contract in November, when the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the ASI.

Those 271 total megawatts of solar power would vault Georgia up to fifth place in solar installed capacity (just ahead of Colorado) if all the other states do nothing else. Don’t bet on that. It’s like Quarterman says. Solar is growing really fast, just not in Georgia, not quite.

In 2012, the U.S. solar industry grew by 76 percent, with more than 3,300 megawatts (or 3.3 gigawatts) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity. The industry supported 119,000 jobs in 2012 (a 13.2 percent increase over 2011), and total solar electric installations were valued at $11.5 billion. By comparison, according to SEIA, in 2012 there were 800 solar industry jobs in Georgia (41st in the nation, per capita), where about 90 companies invested $18 million to install residential and commercial solar energy systems.

But Georgia seems ready to catch plenty more rays. According to Hancock, Georgia Power’s ASI promises an investment of $750 million to $1 billion. And if an upstart Macon-based solar company gets its way when the state legislature convenes in 2014, Georgia could soon be thinking in terms of multiple gigawatts.

House Bill 657, the Rural Georgia Economic Recovery and Solar Resource Act of 2014, was introduced by Rep. Rusty Kidd late in the 2013 session. Its main thrust is “to authorize the Public Service Commission to establish a rural community solar initiative and oversee and manage a responsible expansion of solar energy in this state,” according to the bill’s language.

The idea grew out of GaSU’s frustration with Georgia Power’s (and other utility companies’, like the EMCs’) geographic monopoly, as prescribed under the 1973 Georgia Territorial Electric Service Act, which protects utilities from competition within their defined service areas.

“That territorial act is the biggest hurdle we have for deploying a real solar industry in Georgia,” says Quarter-man, who likes the fact that HB 657 focuses on rural solar development, but he doesn’t like the idea of another regulated utility monopoly, which is what the bill suggests.

It’s hard to find anyone who does like the idea of a new monopoly.

“It’s completely unnecessary,” says attorney Bobby Baker, who served on the PSC for 18 years and is now a partner at Freeman Mathis & Gary in Atlanta. “We don’t need a whole new comprehensive layer of regulatory restrictions on an industry that’s ready to take off.”

“We are growing from 4.4 megawatts of solar to 271 megawatts in just a few years, within the existing regulatory construct and the legal territorial services construct, without a mandated RPS [renewable portfolio standards, which exist in most states], without putting additional pressure on customers’ rates,” Georgia Power’s Hancock says. “What we’re struggling with is, why is this bill necessary when we’re demonstrating significant growth without putting upward  pressure on rates and without putting pressure on the legislature?”

via Sun Dancing – Georgia Trend.