Patty Durand, Consumer Advocate working for You

Georgia Power is expanding their monopoly, and has been for years. This is normal behavior for monopolies – they price gouge, crush competition, and expand their reach (the three monopoly evils). They want to grow, just like any business.

Georgia Power’s monopoly (called a franchise agreement) is given to them by the people of Georgia through the state legislature. It can be taken away or it can be restructured to benefit the public interest – us – in far better ways than it is right now.

One of my goals in writing these newsletters is raise public awareness about what needs to change to fix all the badness. Today I want to expose one of Georgia Power’s attempts to expand their monopoly into competitive markets where they do not belong. And I want to share with you Commissioner Echols’ plans for you to pay even bigger electricity bills than you pay now. Why pick on Echols since there’s five commissioners? Because he’s the one in the media All. The. Time. If you’re going to share your thoughts with reporters who then publish your thoughts, well.

First, monopoly expansion. Georgia Power is authorized by their franchise agreement is to deliver electrons to their customers. That’s it. As a monopoly they have captive customers which means if you live in their territory you are their customer. You do not choose your utility. Electric utilities are granted monopolies by states because the idea is that electricity generation is a natural monopoly. We don’t want businesses competing and spending big capital to competitively build generation. Okay – fine. That’s old thinking but let’s leave it alone.

So other than delivering electricity to their customers, Georgia Power should not be in that market. Everything else should be part of a normal competitive market. I mean, that’s what we cherish in this country, right? A free market? Especially conservatives cherish that- progressives and liberals want businesses to have strong guardrails to ensure they don’t harm customers, the environment, or their workers – I’ll call that free market light, but conservatives want few to no regulation. They believe that market competition sets things right.

So why then, do Republicans in control of the state legislature and the Georgia Public Service Commission allow a monopoly utility to bully into the free market and harm other businesses? Those businesses should be a priority for protection and support from monopoly overreach and power. Instead of protection, though, Georgia Power’s money and influence buys off commissioners and so we get bad ruling after bad ruling from what is supposed to be a quasi-judicial body regulating in the public interest.

Let’s look at one of the coolest innovations in the past decade – a technology that is could solve our climate change problems. That technology is large utility storage known as BESS. BESS stands for Battery Energy Storage System, which is a device that stores energy from renewable sources in rechargeable batteries for later use. BESS systems compensate for the intermittency of renewable energy sources and reduces costs by accumulating renewable energy during off-peak times and using it when needed during expensive peak demand times. 

When BESS is combined with renewables such as solar, it creates the zero carbon grid we need. For a long time BESS costs were too expensive (note the irony with nuclear energy not being too expensive). But in the last 10 years BESS costs have dropped tremendously.

And states have expanded its use accordingly. Why wouldn’t they?

In Georgia, however, we have a problem. And that is, Georgia Power doesn’t want to do anything that expands solar + storage. Parent company Southern Company wants Georgia Power to expand gas to profit affiliates Atlanta Gas Light, Southern Company Gas, Southern Company Services, and mores. While there is utility scale solar on Georgia Power’s grid, that’s only because 1- it profits them; 2- they were directed to by Commissioner McDonald; and 3-it allows them to secure business from industrials with carbon emissions commitments. But for residential rooftop solar, nope. 43rd place nationally. Commercial rooftop and community solar, nope, nope. Too low to even rank.

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