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Dear <<First Name>>,

TODAY IS THE DAY! 9:30 AM today elected officials at the Georgia Public Service Commission are scheduled to begin the administrative session containing the 2022 rate increase vote. On deck: a $1.8 BILLION increase in revenues Ga Power will be authorized to collect resulting in an 11.65% increase in rates over 3 years. Tune in to https://lnkd.in/gVdvQJ7K to watch where I'll be livestreaming with commentary.

In addition to $1.8B increases: how high can Ga Power profits go; how much rooftop solar owners will be reimbursed for energy they add to the grid; and pricing for community solar.

My goal is to peel back the curtain of what happens at the commission - those of us who pay Ga Power electric bills as determined by the elected commissioners (note: not commissioners who pay electric bills to rural EMCs, not Ga Power).

I will cover both R4 and R5 on the below agenda. There may be some waiting for those items to come up. Join me at 9:30 AM.
#energy #power #streaming #nuclearenergy #utilitybills #rooftopsolar #communitysolar #gapol


There has been a LOT of media coverage. Here is the latest one and they do a good job of laying out part of the details. Get a belly laugh as Tim Echols claims Plant Vogtle is “the cheapest energy Georgia will produce” and “is the latest technology”. Not only is neither statement true, it’s not even close.


Just a reminder: Despite the urgent need to address climate change, Georgia Power is asking the Georgia PSC for a Christmas tree stuffed with policies that limit distributed energy, which is when consumers generate their own electricity. They want to

  1. end net metering, which pays rooftop solar customers the same rate for adding energy on the grid as Georgia Power charges for it. By ending that program Georgia Power will pay only 2-3 cents/kWh so the investment doesn’t pencil out.

  2. charge a $100 interconnection fee which further curtails consumer participation in solar and ensures customers don’t see a payback for 20+ years.

  3. increase community solar monthly block fees from $25 to $28, which is already a dead market since the $25 fee was too high for the investment to pencil out.

Georgia is already in 43rd place in rankings for rooftop solar. Georgia Power wants Georgia to stay there. But Georgia needs about 10-15x the amount of solar to meet the nation’s (and Southern Company’s) goals of reducing carbon emissions of 50% by 2030 and zero by 2050. We cannot get there with only utility solar that profits Georgia Power. Georgia is one of the top carbon emitters per capita.

Here is where Georgia Power stands right now:

This is from the Sierra Club’s Dirty Truth about Utility Climate Pledges report:

Watch with me at 9:30 AM. Let’s see how our elected commissioners do.

Oops - forgot something. The Commission always has a pre-meeting devotional (a faith-based mini-sermon, words of encouragement) and prayer that normally begins at 9:25am and concludes at 9:30am. Sometimes it’s much longer.

https://www.facebook.com/patty.durand.5