This is the letter that exposes GAPower’s scare tactics that the Savannah Morning News chose not to print

(The following letter was sent to the Savannah Morning News the day after the paper published an op-ed by a GA Power VP who claimed that passage of Power Purchase Agreements would cause an increase in rates. GA Power won — the rest of us lost. We must mobilize to see this travesty doesn’t happen again — js)

To the editor:

Don’t Blame it on the Sun

GA Power warns that SB 259 will raise rates for all electric customers.
Before I debunk that claim let’s look at who will benefit. Power Purchase
Agreements (PPAs) benefit property owners who would like to install solar
modules but cannot take advantage of the tax credits, or are retirees or
others on fixed incomes who want a predictable cost of electric power for
the long term, and also religious institutions, schools, libraries,
museums and other non-profits, as well as local governments, that cannot
avail themselves of tax credits.

There are no dollar amounts attached to the claim that SB 459 or SB 401 would lead to what is described as an unfair rate increase. I suspect that’s because the math won’t support it.

The math has a lot of zeroes, but is rather simple. The numbers are drawn
from GA Power’s latest (2010) Annual Report. Retail electricity sales
(residential, commercial and industrial) were 87.2 billion kWhs. Let’s
assume that just 1% could be produced by solar through PPAs. That would be 872 million kWhs.

How many residential-equivalent installations would it take to produce 872 million kWhs?

Assuming 5 solar hours per day on an annualized basis and a 5kW
installation, the total number of kWhs per residence would be about 9,000
kWhs per year.

872 million kWhs divided by 9000 kWhs equals over 96,000 installations across the state. Assuming $20,000 per installation, that creates a $2-billion solar industry for Georgia.

Here’s the catch. A 3-person team lead by a certified installer could
probably complete 60 systems a year. That means 1,600 teams, about 5,000 trained installers, would be required. There isn’t anywhere close to that number in Georgia. Therefore, it is far more likely that the actual number of installations would be spread over at least four years. At that pace PPA installations would only represent one-quarter of one percent of GA Power’s retail sales per year and have virtually no impact on generation, transmission and distribution and thus little need to raise rates.

The complaint that PPAs would lead to a special class of unregulated
electric suppliers and therefore leave consumer vulnerable is also weak.
PPAs are service contracts covered by contract law and consumer protection laws. And the installations must meet all building code requirements.

For GA Power to even raise the issue of solar subsidies (tax credits
actually expire in 2016) is laughable from a company that received an $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. Without that
guarantee nuclear plants would never be built. Rate payers are already
subsidizing the costs of construction – even those who are paying now, but
will move out of state, or die, before seeing a single watt of electricity.

GA Power’s embrace of solar is lukewarm at best. Almost all of the 55
megawatts “in its portfolio” come from out of state. GA Power actually buys 21.7 billion kWhs of electricity from other producers. Buying surplus solar electricity from local property owners can actually be a benefit (no long distance transmission loss; no disruptions from tornadoes or hurricanes). But that’s a subject for another time. — js