Georgia Power deploys 1 MW solar; could have done 330 MW by now

Let's compare Georgia Power's 1 megawatt Upson solar plant with what Georgia Power and Southern Company could be doing if they weren't wasting so much money on nukes at Plant Vogtle.

S. Heather Duncan reported for the Macon Telegraph, First big Ga. Power solar project comes online in Upson. Yay! Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company (SO) will have a hard time now saying solar power doesn't work in Georgia. But let's compare the megawatts and put that in perspective.

That's right: we could have had 3,000 times as much solar production by now. All SO would have to do

would be to look at what Cobb EMC and Austin Energy have done, or even what SO itself is doing in Nevada. Or at what Germany, world leader in solar power, a thousand miles north of us, is doing.

• 1 megawatt will be produced by the Upson plant.
• 20 MW will be produced by Cobb EMC's Davisboro solar plant, funded by private capital.
• 20 MW is produced in Nevada by the Apex Solar Project that SO bought.
• 30 MW is generated near Austin, Texas, by the Webberville plant Austin Energy turned on at the beginning of this year.
• 50 MW of solar energy is what the Georgia PSC required Georgia Power to buy.
• 330 MW of solar power is how much Southern Company could have built with just the $913 million cost overrun so far at the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
• 2,200 MW is how much power the two new nukes at Plant Vogtle are supposed to produce (if they ever come online).
• 2,400 MW is the Georgia equivalent per population of the 20 gigawatts (20,000 MW) Germany, the world leader in solar power, has deployed.
• 3,000 MW (3 gigawatts) is how much Southern Company could have built with the $8.3 billion in loans the federal government has guaranteed for Plant Vogtle.
• 3,200 MW is how much new solar capacity will be installed this year in the U.S. Mostly not in Georgia, because Georgia Power and Southern Company are wasting the money on Plant Vogtle while actively preventing the rest of us from deploying as much solar as we could.

Remember: Georgia Power just deployed 1 MW of solar power, when we could have had 3,000 MW by now. Does that seem right to you?

Especially when nuclear plants guzzle water and solar does not?

Maybe it's time to do something about it. Maybe even more than paying your nuclear rate hike in a separate check. As Cobb EMC CEO Chip Nelson said:

We're just ripe for solar power.

-jsq

PS: The Upson story is owed to Alex Thomas.