Georgia Power wins nod to add 210 MW of solar

Nov 21, 2012 - Georgia Power, a unit of Southern Co (NYSE:SO), on Tuesday said it had received approval for a solar initiative, under which it would add 210 MW of solar capacity via long-term contracts over two years.

The Georgia Power Advanced Solar Initiative (GPASI) was approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) in an unanimous five to zero vote. Georgia Power said the programme, which has been developed in cooperation with the PSC, will represent the biggest voluntarily-developed solar portfolio by an investor-owned utility.

The initiative will see Georgia Power purchase 60 MW of utility-scale capacity in each of the two years via a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process aimed at projects of between 1 MW and 20 MW set to go online in 2015 and 2016. It will also sign contracts for up to 45 MW of distributed solar per year with specific reservations for projects of below 100 kW and of between 100 kW and 1 MW. The utility-scale RFPs will be carried out in 2013 and 2014, while the distributed section will be launched by early 2013.

Currently, the company's solar resources include research and demonstration projects and its Large Scale Solar programme of 50 MW, which was approved in 2011. It has 61.5 MW of solar capacity under contract.

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