Georgia’s utility regulators approved a long-term program which can see Georgia Power drastically expands renewable generation and create , own and operate up to 80 megawatts of electricity storage.
The final 2019 integrated resource plan calls for 2,260 megawatts of new power from solar, wind and biomass, which will bring up those resources to 22 percent of the utility total fleet capacity.
“We’re positioning Georgia as a pioneer in the Southeast in battery energy storage, which is important to optimizing and growing the value of renewable energy for customers as we increase our renewable generation by 72 percent by 2024,” explained Allen Reaves, Georgia Power’s senior vice president and mature protection officer, in a statement.
Truly, Southeastern countries have witnessed exceptionally little energy storage development up to now, although utilities like Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light have declared significant investments for the next several years.
But when the final plan confers on Georgia Power the status of regional leadership, the company’s original proposal aspired to something less than that. Since the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy quipped at the moment,”Georgia Power’s new resource program would have been considered bold nine years ago, but this strategy is behind the times”
The regional clean energy advocacy group included that the proposed addition could be less than the renewables approved in the 2016 integrated resource plan, even though solar costs had dropped considerably since then.
The initial suggestion likewise requested for less storage: 50 megawatts, either standalone or solar-adjacent,”to assess the technical and economic performance relative to expectations”
Stakeholder intervention over the last half year succeeded in pushing the goals up to the last outcome.
“Intervenors made a gap through testimony,” explained Daniel Tait, communications and research director for the Southeast at utility watchdog Energy and Policy Institute. “With the info that intervenors put forward, their modeling and their testimony, it’s becoming more and more clear how cost-competitive renewables increasingly storage are in Georgia.”
Battery storage technology, which performs rapid-fire grid services in addition to preserving renewable energy for use during peak hours, has proven appealing to a geographically diverse set of constituents: the solar-heavy California grid, the desert utilities of Arizona, the winter-storm-blown nations of the Northeast. The 80-megawatt devotion cues up a brand new and significant market for the fast growing storage market.
“We aren’t a nation of red states and blue states — we are a state of energy storage conditions,” observed Daniel Finn-Foley, a power storage analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
The agreement stipulates that Georgia Power will pick battery sellers and technology, procurement and construction services through competitive procedures. It’ll seek regulators’ approval on each demonstration project before building it. Indeed, competition for regional leadership in the storage arena has warmed, with Duke Energy’s devotion to 300 megawatts in the Carolinas by 2033 and FP&L’s enormous 409-megawatt endeavor, due on line by the end of 2021.
“Eighty megawatts of storage would have made a significant headline a few years ago,” Finn-Foley noted.
The other significant pillar of the long-range strategy, energy efficiency, failed to spur similarly groundbreaking upgrades. The utility highlighted a few things in its announcement, including a pilot program to assist 500 income-qualified clients save money on their bills. That app is still being finalized.
