Category Archives: CWIP News

Unneeded nuclear plants

by Bob Farquhar
MACON 1/13/14 — Joe Hubbard’s Dec. 24 letter “Citizens pay the cost” brings to mind one profit-enhancing scheme of Southern Company most people are unaware of. CWIP, or Construction Work In Progress, is a fee levied on electric customers to finance the construction costs of two unproven nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. Georgia Power bills show “Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery” for the 7.6 percent that ratepayers have been forking over since 2009 when the Georgia Legislature and Public Service Commission approved CWIP. So far about $1.5 billion has been collected. CWIP reduces Southern Company’s financial risk for construction, passing it on to ratepayers.

Read the whole article: Macon Telegraph

Rate gouging gone wild: Who wins 2013′s Sour Orange Award for sticking it to Floridians?

by Robert Trigaux
TAMPA 12/13/13 — Every year, the oafish actions of big business or government hurt Florida consumers. Think back to banks that fraudulently “robo-signed” home foreclosure papers. Or state-run Citizens Property Insurance dumping gobs of Florida policyholders.

But 2013 upped the ante in sticking it to Floridians. So much so that I decided to issue the annual Sour Orange Award for inflicting the most harm on Tampa Bay and Florida residents.

Two especially outrageous actions were finalists for the award. It was a tough choice.

The first travesty: the Biggert-Waters Act to “reform” those flood insurance premiums on older homes that have been subsidized for decades. Blindly approved by Congress and implemented this fall, the act is starting to rapidly jack up premiums and scare away home buyers. In just a few months, the act already threatens to disrupt and perhaps destroy portions of Florida’s coastal and low-lying real estate markets, ruin home values and undermine a cornerstone of the state economy.

Competing against Biggert-Waters is Duke Energy’s gouging Florida customers this year in a series of flubbed nuclear power projects in Florida. Many of Duke’s actions came at the direct expense of its own (and increasingly unhappy) base of Florida customers. In February, Duke decided to shutter its one and only nuclear power plant, broken since 2009, in Crystal River north of Tampa. This past week, Duke said it will take the next 60 years and spend $1.2 billion just to decommission the plant, leaving decades of spent radioactive fuel stored on site and under guard.

Read the whole article: Tampa Bay Times

AARP seeks repeal of nuclear ‘advance fee’ as a priority in 2014

by Ivan Penn
12/9/13 — In its December newsletter, the AARP pledged that one of its 2014 legislative goals is the repeal of the state law that allows utilities to charge customers in advance for new nuclear projects.

AARP said it is backing a small but growing coalition of lawmakers who believe the law is an unfair tax on consumers who may get nothing from the charges.

The Nuclear Cost Recovery Clause or so-called “advance fee” has been a growing point of contention since Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light began using the statute for proposed nuclear plants that may never get built.

Read the whole article: Tampa Bay Times

AARP Aims To Rally Opposition Against Georgia Power Rate Hike

by Jonathan Shapiro
ATLANTA 12/6/2013 — AARP is aiming to rally opposition against Georgia Power’s latest rate hike request through radio and internet ads.

Radio Ad: “Even after four years of rate hikes, Georgia Power is asking for another increase.”

The ads come despite a tentative deal reached last month between the power company, state regulators, and consumer groups to lower the rate request from $1.46 billion to $873 million.

Read the whole article: WABE 90.1

Green Elephants: The Famous Conservatives Vocally Supporting Clean Energy

by Jacob Sandry
12/5/13
Why Conservatives love clean energy
Efficiency and Competition
The costs of technologies like solar have dropped meteorically over the past few years, making renewables efficient and reliable. More renewables means more competition in the free market, which should drive down prices, benefiting customers.

Choice and Self-reliance
Electricity is dominated by regional monopolies across the United States. Renewables give customers more choices over their electricity purchases so they aren’t solely reliant on big utilities for their energy.

National Security
Clean energy can reduce our dependence on oil from volatile countries. The military is pumping billions of dollars into renewables to increase troop readiness and independence. It also makes us more prepared for major blackouts from cyber attacks or storms.

Read the whole article: Huffington Post

AARP fires back over Georgia Power rate hike

By Walter C. Jones
ATLANTA 12/2/13 — Georgia Power agreed last month to settle for a smaller rate hike than it had wanted, an agreement that won endorsement by nearly a dozen consumer, environmental and business advocacy groups, but one organization is fighting it.

The retiree-advocacy AARP is airing radio and online commercials and pushing a petition to urge the five members of the Public Service Commission to nix the agreement negotiated by its public-interest staff that slices the rate hike almost in half. Monday, the 1-million-member group reported collecting almost 3,000 signatures.

Its advertisement on WSB-AM in Atlanta points people to a website action.aarp.org/GAutilities where they can voice their opposition to the rate hike still part of the agreement as well as the reduced profit target. Georgia Power is accepting a reduction from 11.15 percent to 10.95, but the ad says that’s higher than the national average for other regulated monopoly utilities.

“In these tough economic times, Georgia families deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets – by paying Georgia Power what’s fair and reasonable, and not a dime more,” said AARP spokesman Ed Van Herik.

Read the whole article: Florida Times-Union

A green movement of all stripes

By Darren Goode
12/2/13 — Can conservatives and environmentalists get along again?

Activists around the country are giving it a try.

In Appalachia, greens are banding together with the Tennessee Conservative Union to oppose mountaintop mining. In Georgia, the Sierra Club and Atlanta’s tea party have formed a Green Tea Coalition that is demanding a bigger role for solar power in the state’s energy market. Elsewhere, veterans of the George W. Bush administration are working with the Environmental Defense Fund on market-based ideas for protecting endangered species.

It’s not yet a broad national trend, and may not be enough to begin dampening Washington’s bitter left-right split over President Barack Obama’s environmental policies. But some activists — particularly outside the Beltway — see potential for the kinds of coalitions that used to get big things done, back in the days when Theodore Roosevelt was creating national parks and George H.W. Bush’s administration was taking on acid rain.

Read the whole article: POLITICO

Tea Party, Sierra Club Unite to Support Solar Energy in Georgia

by Chris Martin
11/27/13 – Here’s a riddle to vex the Washington political class: When do Tea Party Republicans stand together with Sierra Club environmentalists?

The answer lies in their support for solar energy. The Green Tea Coalition, a Georgia-based group, is reviving a Republican Party link with the Sierra Club that dates back more than a century to President Theodore Roosevelt. Their goal is to reignite support for environmental conservation and fight traditional utilities’ market power by pushing alternative energy sources, especially solar power. “Some people have called this an unholy alliance,” says Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of both the coalition and the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots. “We agree on the need to develop clean energy, but not much else.”

In recent years, Dooley organized protests of what she calls Georgia Power’s (SO) stranglehold on its customers. She was especially rankled in 2009 after the company, the state’s largest utility, added a monthly surcharge to customer bills to finance the development of two nuclear reactors south of Augusta. In 2012, Dooley was approached by the local chapter of the Sierra Club about joining forces to lobby Georgia’s Public Service Commission to require Georgia Power to buy more solar power.

Read the whole article: Businessweek

A War Over Solar Power Is Raging Within the GOP

by Grace Wyler
11/21/13 — These days Barry Goldwater, Jr. is on an unlikely crusade. In March, the former California Republican congressman founded Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed, or TUSK, after Arizona’s largest electric utility proposed a hefty new fee on solar customers and a plan to lower net metering rates, which dictate how much electric utilities pay solar customers for excess energy sold back to the grid. “Republicans want the freedom to make the best choice,” Goldwater said in a statement on TUSK’s website. So he cobbled together a ragtag coalition of libertarian-minded conservatives, solar industry advocates, and business groups to wage a colorful guerrilla campaign. In the past few months, TUSK has run ads attacking the electric utility on conservative talk radio and the Drudge Report. They’ve posted clever YouTube videos, including a song parody sung to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “They Totally Think We’re Not Smart.”

Read the whole article: New Republic

Agreement would lower earnings target for Ga Power

by Ray Henry
ATLANTA (AP) 11/18/13 — Georgia Power would accept a lower return on shareholder investments and ditch a proposal to charge special rates for rooftop solar power under a preliminary agreement reached Monday.

The Southern Co. subsidiary reached a tentative deal with Georgia utility regulators to set its rates through 2016. It would reduce the value of the rate increases sought by the utility by more than $500 million over a three-year period, according to regulatory filings. The agreement must still be approved by the elected members of the Public Service Commission, though they typically ratify such deals.

Utility shareholders who invest money in the electrical grid would get a lower return on their investments. The return would drop to 10.95 percent from the current 11.15 percent. Georgia Power originally wanted an 11.5 percent return on its shareholder investments.

Read the whole article: Houston Chronicle

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Repeal Georgia Nuclear Tax