By Clint Wilder | Clean Edge
At Clean Edge, we’ve said for years that clean energy and energy efficiency should not be partisan issues – that benefits like quality American jobs, reduced dependence on imported oil, leadership in technology innovation, and cleaner air and water should appeal across the political spectrum. In reality, of course, this has not generally been the case in the U.S. at the federal level, with most debates about energy sources falling along the same blue and red lines as most other issues (remember “Drill Baby, Drill”?). There are a few notable exceptions, but bipartisan collaborations seem vastly outnumbered by the typical headlines about right-wing opposition to a clean-energy economy, including the current eye-roller about GOP House members fighting new efficiency standards for ceiling fans.
All this makes recent developments at the state level all the more noteworthy. In Georgia and Arizona – two states that are among the most conservative bastions in the U.S. – solar power is finding some interesting new allies in the fight against large utilities that want to put the brakes on solar development.
Last month, the all-Republican Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) voted to order the state’s largest utility, Georgia Power, to add 525 MW of new solar generation (425 MW of utility scale and 100 MW of distributed) into its energy mix by 2016. Georgia Power, a unit of energy giant Southern Co., had previously submitted plans to the PSC calling for no new solar for the next 20 years. Georgia had just over 20 MW of solar installed statewide by the end of last year, according to the Clean Edge 2013 U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index. The author of the PSC motion was veteran commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr., a former state representative from tiny Clarkesville, Georgia, 85 miles northwest of Atlanta near the South Carolina border. In other words, Portlandia it ain’t.
