Georgia Power wants to keep coal plants alive to meet electricity demand
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Power Co. says it wants to keep burning coal to meet what it forecasts as the state's increasing electrical demand.
Georgia's only private electrical utility says electrical demand is forecast to grow rapidly in the state, with much of the jump coming from power-hungry data centers. It's just one example of how increasing electrical demand is pressuring electrical infrastructure in the United States and endangering the country's ability to cut emissions of climate-changing carbon dioxide.
The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. on Friday filed a required plan with regulators on how it would generate and transmit power in the future. Georgia's Public Service Commission, composed of five elected Republicans, will hold hearings and vote on the plan. Then Georgia Power will propose a rate plan for how it will pay for the investments over the next three years, with commissioners likely to vote on rates in December. The company didn't say Friday how much its proposals would cost or how they would filter down to bills.
The likely bill impacts could matter a lot, because two commissioners — Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson — are up for reelection in November. Their unusual odd-year election dates resulted from a failed legal challenge to Georgia's system of electing commissioners statewide.
A typical Georgia Power residential customer is currently paying an average of $163.57 a month before taxes. Bill increases, driven by factors including a jump in the cost of natural gas and the cost of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, have outstripped inflation. In 2019, customers paid $123.31 a month.
Georgia Power increased its demand forecast by 2,000 megawatts a year going forward in the integrated resource plan it filed Friday. That's nearly as much electricity as both of the new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta are supposed to generate in a year. Overall it says it needs to generate 8,000 additional megawatts per year in the near future.
'The 2025 IRP provides a comprehensive plan to support Georgia's continued economic growth and serve Georgians with clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy well into the future,' Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene said in a statement.
But the reliance on coal, and the carbon dioxide that coal-fueled generation produces, alarmed others. They said Georgia Power is choosing a costly option.
'We're the number one state to do business and one of the U.S.'s fastest growing tech hubs. Are we really going to power progress with gas and coal?' Jennifer Whitfield, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement. 'Coal hasn't been economic for years, and paying for even more methane gas is incompatible with the future Georgians want and businesses are demanding.'
Instead of closing a coal-fueled unit at Plant Scherer north of Macon in 2028, Georgia Power now wants to keep it running until 2035 or 2038. No closing date had been determined for the massive coal-fueled Plant Bowen, northwest of Atlanta in Euharlee. Georgia Power wants to keep it running until 2035 or 2038 as well. The company also wants to keep Alabama's Plant Gaston, which it co-owns with sister company Alabama Power, running through 2034 instead of closing it in 2028. Gaston runs mostly on natural gas but with some coal.
Georgia Power proposed burning natural gas alongside coal at Plant Scherer and Plant Bowen, which would reduce carbon emissions somewhat. It's also proposing changes that would increase output at its Vogtle and Hatch nuclear power plants without building new reactors and increase capacity at its Plant McIntosh natural gas plant near Savannah.
The company also said it would ask outsider developers to bid on constructing solar panels and battery storage systems that can generate 1,100 megawatts of power. But that's far less that it would generate by continuing to run coal plants.
Georgia Power also wants to create a program where small customers could install solar and battery storage at their homes and get bill credits for letting the utility draw on their electricity when it's needed.
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