(GPB) — A new report finds that if Georgia Power wants to meet the Biden administration’s clean energy goals, the utility needs to act quickly.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, or SACE, studied what needs to happen in the Southeast to reach President Biden’s goal of moving to renewable energy by 2035.
They found that it’s doable. To make up for coal and gas, Georgia Power and its fellow utilities under Southern Company would have to expand solar and wind, as well as energy efficiency programs, starting now.
(Credit: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)
Maggie Shober of SACE said the changes would require investment, but doing nothing is already expensive.
“I mean, there’s hundreds of billions of dollars already that’s being spent because of extreme weather and because of these impacts of climate change,” she said.
The scenarios in the report call not just for more large solar farms, but also more rooftop solar, something the utility has been slower to get behind.
The goal of switching to renewable energy by a certain date, known as a “clean energy standard,” has been adopted by several cities in Georgia but not at the state or federal level. SACE is pushing for a federal standard.
This story comes to Now Habersham through a reporting partnership with GPB News, a non-profit newsroom covering the state of Georgia.
