 I want to thank everybody for coming out today for the Athens Town Hall meeting about the Georgia Power Recap case currently before the Public Service Commission and without further ado I want to have his give a special thanks to VSC Commissioner Tim Eccles for visiting with us today. So with that I'm going to hand it off to Brian and he's going to give us a general synopsis of the case. All right thanks Doug. Thank you Mr. Eccles for being here tonight. Thank all of you for coming out. A beautiful fall evening. This is great. What they're asking for in this rate case is an additional 2.2 billion dollars over the next three years. Right now they recover about 8.4 billion dollars a year so it's it's a little bit less than 10 percent about a 9 percent increase that they're asking for over that three year period. And the justifications that they've provided for those incremental costs are increased costs of their investments. The things in the rate base so their investments in generation and transmission and distribution that's pretty basic. They're also looking for recovery of unrecovered storm damage costs. There have been several hurricanes that have impacted Georgia that totals about 449 million of the 2.2 billion rate increase. They're looking to recover costs associated with managing coal ash combustion coal residuals coal ash that represents almost a billion dollars over the next three years. And they're looking to recover updated depreciation and amortization expenses. So those are the main justifications that are provided in the rate case for the 2.2 billion incremental. And in general a rate case is pretty simple. If the commission deems the expenses to be reasonable and prudent then the utility is entitled to recover them. All right. But what happens if there are different perspectives differences of opinion and one of the things that we're picking up is that coal ash is one of those such subjects. Some people think that the billion dollars is too much or shouldn't be born by rate payers and shouldn't instead be born by the share owners of the company. There are other people who actually look at that billion dollars for the coal ash management and think that it's insufficient that the program that the utility has put forward doesn't do enough to protect some of our waterways from some of the coal ash issues. So there's different perspectives there. These are the kinds of things that the commission has to wrestle with. And then once they've determined how much the utility can recover there's an entire second step that is who do they recovery from how much do they get from the commercial industrial customers how much from the residential and how much gets embedded in the rate and how much gets embedded in the other fixed charges because technically you don't just pay a rate you pay a bill and that bill is a combination of your consumption multiplied by a rate and then added to that the mandatory fixed fee component. So here's where we have different perspectives again. This proposal pretty significantly increases the fixed charge component of the bills. In some cases it's double for the largest customer class which is residential it's about a 79.5% increase. So right now the basic service charge for a residential customer is $10 a month. The company has proposed to instead charge $17.95 a month starting three years from now with incremental steps over the next three years to get there. Is that a sufficient introduction? Does anyone have any questions before we kind of get this started? What percentage of the 2.2 billion will come out of fixed cost? It is in the filing and I don't want to misspeak from memory so I'll find it maybe before we leave here tonight. I have a quarter, a half, three quarters. I think it's 80% on the fixed and 20% on the fuel charge. I think it's 80-20. Is it 80-20? It's demanding that the company go bankrupt because of its treatment for decision-making of reasonable option. They shouldn't have invested in more nuclear. They should have since we're putting the CO2 in half a spirit, they're responsible for some of the store damage and the coal ash that are problem that they've known about since the beginning of the talk. I think that's a good question for your opportunity to come up and share with everyone. I will say just to point out though that none of the costs in this rate case are associated with the expansion plan of the two new units. Those are handled entirely separately so that's a good point to clarify. For those, you know, dealt with, that will just increase in our rates? Right now you'll see it. I know that but just in terms of you'll see it now as a line item. There's a nuclear construction cost recovery line item on a rider on the bill. Once they are up and running, then they will come back in front of the commission to incorporate those into base rates. But right now they're not. There's a nuclear construction cost recovery line. Actually, Vogel units 1 and 2 and Hatch units 1 and 2, the existing nuclear reactors are a part of the rate case because the operations and maintenance of those plants are a part of that. But the new reactors, as Brian said, 3 and 4, that's a separate line item. To his comment on the bankruptcy, as enjoyable as that might be for you, it would void all the solar contracts that we have in our state, including all the power purchase agreements, and would probably put those solar developers in a very difficult situation because their higher price contracts that they've had would be renegotiated now by a bankruptcy court and they would probably not fare well. It would probably trigger a number of bankruptcies of various solar companies. I'm not sure that that would be the best wish for us. I don't wish bankruptcy on anybody. I think the power company realizes because of the pushback that that 1795 is too steep. I'm giving away my opinion now, but my prediction is they're not going to get that. But I'm going to ask at the end of the night, I don't want to prejudice you now with it, but let's say in 2010 for the rate case, what if we had tied the base rate to the rate of inflation and just said, you know what, we're going to let it go up each year just based on, you know, the cost of living index for inflation. And let's just automatically have that do that so that you're keeping up as we're going along as opposed to having these big chunks. And so I'll ask you at the end of the night what you think about that. I'm still thinking about it myself, but I wonder if something like that would be more reasonable, more logical, you know, for the average person. All right. So I guess we can just get started. If anybody wants to come up and give a comment. I think I think I can kick us off just to kind of if you guys want to go ahead and make your way up to the podium. Mr. My name is Don Warland. And so looking at the the increase of the base rate to 1795 from a solar perspective is it's a lot to take on. You may know and you do know that, you know, at the Georgia Solar Energy Association, we are working with several NEAC cities and other EMCs to try to reduce what they call standby fees. And so these are additional fees that are levied on the solar in addition to the base fee. But when you do increase that base fee in proportion, it does affect your solar investment, especially if it doesn't scale. And if it's not a progressive rate, then it will disproportionately affect those who get smaller sized systems and possibly knock those out because it's not any no longer financially feasible. So I'm not saying I have an answer for it, but, you know, just advocating from the Georgia Solar Energy Association point of view, it is a very large consideration and why we wanted to assemble this today. I lit into one of the witnesses that Georgia Power had brought in from San Francisco, because I felt like he was revealing that Georgia Power was was going after this cross subsidy and that they were that they were going to disproportionately impact solar customers. So I grilled this witness for about 30 minutes, you know, and finally got him to admit that he should grandfather and any existing solar customers. I was hoping that the attorneys representing the solar associations in the room would get up when it was their turn and give me some cover on this to basically say amen to ask them further questions and they did not. And I confronted the attorney in the lobby and said, why didn't you why didn't you continue this line of questioning? And and this is just what this attorney told me. They said our main concern is standby charges. And as long as they don't add those standby charges, we are willing to accept this. We don't want to raise a concern about this when we're much more concerned about this other thing. And so we are going to remain quiet on this issue. And I said, I wish I wish you would have told me ahead of time, you know, before I embarrassed myself there and making such a big deal about it, if it doesn't mean that much to the solar community. And since then, Don, I've had people run numbers on this to determine exactly what the impact would be on someone with with a solar array on their roof. And because if it was just going up on the energy charge, I mean, just going up on the on the six charge and not the energy charge, it would be even worse. But because that energy charge is going up to also that is Mr. Moore, right? Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore has less than five points. He has a solar array. He is and because he's now going to be avoiding a higher energy charge, his solar, his solar is technically going to be worth a little bit more. And I've actually had them run it on a 1200 kilowatt hour customer. So it's not as bad as I thought initially, you know, that it was. And so I wanted to give you and I had not told you this information about this attorney situation. But I did feel like that, you know, I was out there by myself, you know, on this. I'm really sorry to hear that. Can I have that attorney's name and address? In private, you can. Yes. All right. Well, thank you for that. You know, grandfathering in existing solar systems is a is a great consideration. I think you know by now that, you know, one attorney that might represent one association doesn't necessarily represent the entire solar community. So that's what we're here for. Okay, we're ready for comments. Hi, my name is Mark Farmer. I live in Winterville 30683. And I recognize the companies like George and Power have increasing costs, and that these costs have to be met by those of us who consume their product in the form of electricity. So in the sense of, well, should we not have any rate heights? Well, that would be an idealistic world and that would be great. But I'm a practical person. I recognize that that's not the reality. But what many of you who know me may not know about me is that I have a fairly strong libertarian streak when it comes to spending money. When I sell whole my trash out to the athletes for County landfill, I do my best to make sure that I've recycled as much as I can compost it as much as I can. And because I know that they're going to charge me more for four cans worth of trash than they will for two cans of trash. And the fewer times I can go out there the less I have to pay. So I really feel very strongly from that perspective that we should pay for what we consume. And if we are paying for something that we are not consuming, then that strikes me as a very unfair situation. So if the rate hike has to increase, increasing the per kilowatt hour cost is I think the fairest way to deal with it in terms of as maybe you use a lot less electricity than I do because you've got solar panels on your house. Maybe someone else has a installed a heat pump at great cost to them to reduce their consumption. But it should be based on how much of a product that we use. When I go to the gas station, I don't pay $3 just to use their pump. I pay for the cost of the gasoline I'm buying. And with any other product that I purchase, it's based on my quantity consumed and quantity used. And I accept that I have to pay an appropriate price for that. But increasing the base rate for an individual really goes against my personal feelings that we should pay for what we use and not pay for what we don't use. Excellent. Hi, I'm Clint Bore, 30606. And yeah, I'd like to balance out Mark's comments with maybe some less well thought out comments kind of being on the stupid side. But actually the very last thing he said triggered something in me. I write my bike pretty much all the time to get back and forth to work. And I remember when I started writing, there was a lot of controversy some years ago in the absence community about folks using bikes on the road not paying their fair share and even talk about like a flat tax or something that would be applied to bike riders because they're not paying fair share, which is ridiculous because I also drive and I pay fees on taxes on gasoline. So that ultimately do pay for the roads. But it strikes me as a similar kind of thing. Before I came here, I had to kind of bone up on what a regressive tax was. And one of the examples listed in the website I looked at was certain things like flat government fees. But also something that was interesting was the concept of a sin tax. Taxes on cigarettes and things disproportionately affect certain segments of the society. This strikes me almost as a virtue tax and the way that it hits and it disincentivizes a little bit in terms of what I can do with my overriding concern is to use as little great power as I can really regardless of the cost. But you know, the fee this large, the height this large, it certainly disincentivizes that. I do like the idea of the cost of living adjustment. And this would be a rate they're proposing would be a 10% per year cost of living. Hi, I'm Michael Songster. I live and I was a code 306 of 6. And I'm not sure I fully believe that it's not going to harm solar users. I think that's probably highly situational individual than individual. There could be a difference. I do think it very definitely harms people who focus on efficiency and we ought to be putting efficiency above all of those other concerns. And so I read online there was information, there was a calculator that showed that someone who only had about a $60 Georgia Power bill a month would see a 24% increase in a bill versus someone who was paying an average of $200 a month. And so those folks that are already, you know, cutting back on their usage are the ones that are going to get penalized the most by a base rate. And I think that's that is in fact more damaging than the impact on solar, which I also think is a concern. I guess I don't know nearly enough to really comment on this, but concerning the coal ash, it is, I guess I can ask a question here. Is the, is the coal that Georgia Power purchases part of your rate or is that part of the investment recovery? And yeah, we'd like for me to respond to that. So a fuel rider, there's something called a fuel rider. And so we don't allow them to make a profit on the fuel. So it's a pass through charge, if you will. And it is like a revolving credit card account. So it will build up where they have spent more than we will have them to recover on it. And we just keep a running balance on it, and we will true it up from time to time. So the ash is not a part of the actual coal acquisition or the natural gas acquisition. So that's a separate rider. And they're not getting the 10.95%. They're not they're not profiting off of that. Is that money recovered for the purchase of the fuel through the rate? No, it's through the base. It's through the rider. Okay. So it's a completely separate thing on our bill. And we pay for it. There's something on our bill that says there's a lot on a fuel recovery cost fuel rider, something like that. Yeah, Brian, chime in here if you want. But there's I think about four riders that are part of your electricity bill. And they all represent a certain percentage of the amount of kilowatt hours used. So the more kilowatt hours you use, everybody's paying the same percentage. But the more kilowatt hours you use the higher rate of those riders you're going to be paying. Well, that essentially is part of your rate and not part of your base. Indirectly. Because it's built the same way. Right. Yeah. So the new feeder construction cost recovery, that's an example of one of the riders that is tied to the amount of use. But it seems that if we're paying for that as a proportion of our energy use, and that's the input into the plant, then this cost, this output that they have, which is also essentially an accumulated incremental cost of the input that they have allowed to grow over time, that also seems like something they're going to recover it. And that should also come from the amount of energy that people are using to be folded into the base rate. So let me see if I understand this. You're thinking that the coal ash charge for the mitigation of the coal ash or remediation of the coal ash should be a formula based on historical consumption of your power bill? Or whatever consumption. I mean, I suppose if you do it in a real time, it actually makes sense because you had a share of it going in and now you've got a share of it going out. I haven't thought of it like that. So this, that's a good idea. Melissa Link, I live here in Avenue 3601. I would like to know how profitable Georgia Power is. Yes. How much are these shareholders getting? A return on their investment investments are risky. Would you buy stock? You don't know if that company is going to go up or down. And why aren't these shareholders being asked to shoulder some of them? And I also have some concerns about the plant bubble fee as well. But if you can answer that question right away. I'm not a shareholder. I don't go to their corporate meetings. I don't listen in on their calls. So I don't know that much about that. I do know that their shareholders had to eat almost a billion dollars worth of that nuclear plant cost that they wrote down in the last year. So I know that they've taken some hit on that. I mean, it is a profitable company. Utilities in general are attractive investments to people because they do get a high return on equity. Well, I recall a number that was 2.3 billion. If I recall correctly, shareholder profits a year or two ago. I'm curious to know if their CEOs and top executives are getting higher and higher pay. If you could ask those questions in some of these hearings, I think it's unfair that great payers are shouldering some of these burdens. And, you know, I've mixed feelings about the cleanup costs. Because folks who settled in areas that are less likely to be impacted by climate change caused storms, you know, necessarily have to bear all the burden of those costs. But then again, I have a mother in law who lives in a double wide trailer in Colford, Georgia, who would live without power for over a month and have to climb over a tree to get in the door. So I would like to see these costs distributed more equitably to the people who bear them. And for those of us who have solar, I don't believe we should be paying into that plant bubble construction. Part of the reason I invested in solar is so that I have to contribute to the degradation of the climate. And which includes nuclear, you know, and the use of water and the mining of uranium and all these dangerous practices. That's mentioned. What happens if something goes wrong? I really feel that those of us who have invested in solar should be exempt from that new plant charge. I mean, every time I see that on my bill, I'm about to throw up in my mouth. So I would hope that you could bring those concerns to Georgia Power that, you know, we are looking to the future and investing in renewable energy so we don't have to pay billions and billions of dollars in nuclear plant boomdoggles that could be that, you know, lead to the end of life as we know it should something go wrong. Well, as if I could respond to that, you do have the option to do what the moors will eventually do and that is probably go off the grid. They've got solar, they've got batteries, and they're not too far away from being able to do that. You do have that option, you could cut that cord if you wanted to. Obviously, it's expensive to do that. The decision about how you generate power, you know, it is philosophical. It speaks to, you know, a person's, even their worldview. You have a certain worldview that you, you know, explain tonight, you know, that you don't like nuclear energy. You would like to be exempt from it. And we don't allow people to opt out, you know, a certain energy sources based on their personal preferences. It's, you basically, if you're living in their territory, you've got, and you're going to connect to their grid, then you, you know, you take that grid the way it's delivered. And then every six years you've got an opportunity to kick those commissioners who regulate them out, right? We have, we're one of only, we're one of only nine states that elect commissioners. All the rest of the states have the governor appoint them. And the disadvantage of that, of course, is that you get a puppet when you have the governor appoint that person. Here at least you have the opportunity to remove me if you are unhappy. You know, with my worldview, my philosophy, my responsiveness, you have a chance to say, you go home and do something else. We want this person in there. And, you know, that very well, you know, could happen, you know, to me one day. I view plant vocal and clean energy. I view clean energy, the clean energy future as solar plus batteries plus nuclear energy. Because it's carbon free and it's allowing me to close coal plants. We just approved closure of another five coal units. And without those nuclear reactors, we could not do that. Yeah, we've got the waste issue. Yeah, there's some other issues associated with it. I understand that it is allowing us to close coal units. And so we'll never build another coal unit in Georgia. We'll continue to close those units. So I feel like that all the solar, we just added 2,260 megawatts is going to move us into this next phase. We're going to, we added 80 megawatts of batteries. We're going to experiment with batteries for the first time. And so, and I anticipated in 2023 when we do this again, that we add even more batteries. So I feel like we're, we're moving forward. And yes, it's slow. It's not as fast as California. It's not as fast as Germany. But it's Georgia. And it's, it's the methodical way that we're doing things. And you have five Republicans that are sitting on a commission. And we're doing it in a way that is true to our world view and our philosophy. And even though you might disagree with it, we're trying to be true to what, you know, to what we believe is the, is the right way to go forward. Well, I have another concern about the impact of these base rates fees on our impoverished community. Like Mr. Brommer said, you know, it seems a lot more fair to increase the consumption costs, you know, per kilowatt cost, because you might have a, you know, little lady who live in on social security who uses very little electricity, but she gets that big face rate C increase. And that really cuts into her income and her ability to feed herself. Look, let me, let me respond to that. You're right. If you're a low, a low power user, 600 kilowatt hours or less, or you have a meter that's running something like your barn, if you have a barn that's not using much power, that low user is going to be disproportionately impacted. But I had them run the numbers for people that are getting lie heap assistance. That's what I wanted to see. People that are struggling, that are having to get this additional assistance, those lie heap customers are using about 1200 kilowatt hours on the average. And they actually come out better with the formula way, the way that the power company has done it. That's with some, you know, with the 10 to the 1795 and then that increase in energy charge, the heavier the user, the better they are on the new rate. But you're exactly right. If you're if you're barely using any power, you're going to see a bigger increase. What about a tiered pricing? I mean, here in Athens, we do our water in a tiered pricing to encourage less consumption. Could we possibly do that? That would help encourage people to use less and make them more aware. And, you know, certainly what we see in Athens is, you know, folks who have the ability to pay are less of, you know, more likely to consume more because it's not what they deal with them. But, you know, other people are able to save something when they pay attention to their consumption. So what you're talking about is a price signal, right, the cent. Mark, why don't you explain the time of use rate your own and how that sends you a price signal? So I'm on the EV rate, you know, which means that between 11 o'clock and 7 a.m., I run most of my power needs. I charge my car. I run my dishwasher. I run my dryer. So that type of flexible rate plan does force behavior changes. And I'm using now more electricity than I did five years ago and paying less for it. I mean, I kind of do the same thing, you know, knowing that I have solar panels working in the day and trying to run the dishwasher and the dryer and all that kind of stuff during the day. But not everybody has the luxury of being home during the day to do these things. I mean, if you're charging your car during the day, you know, people who can afford an electric vehicle, they're probably at work with that vehicle during the day. So, you know, I really would like to see some kind of consumption based rate and possibly a tiered system. I'm noting that. Thank you. I think tiered systems work in certain situations. I haven't thought about that. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Just a couple comments on that. There are uses of tiered rates and your commercial plans. It doesn't work like the water. It actually works like the inverse. So, the more energy you use, the cheaper it gets, which is opposite of how the water can be made. You know, fast corporations and large-scale facilities get a much cheaper rate. Yeah. And even with, you heard us mention, standby fees before and a lot of, not Georgia Power, thankfully, because they're regulated, but some of these unregulated utilities, they do have a tiered standby fee, depending on the size of this order that you might install on the rooftop. So, it's less of a fee for smaller-sized projects. And if you could extrapolate that kind of reasoning to these base charges, if you're a low user, to somebody's point before, if you're not, why pay for it if you're not using it, kind of thing. So, if you're a lower user, then maybe it's appropriate to tier that base rate to reflect that. All right. Yes, sir. Yeah. I'm Mike Duncan at 30605. My first question has to do with your graph showing the $10 that we're currently charging, and then all the folks that were charging more. And we mentioned X-axis, and I'm curious to the Y-axis, how many people are charging less? And I don't need to know that, but it seems like it's sort of misleading. Are there people that are charging less? No, no, $10 is the smallest. Wow. That's awesome. So, I'm coming from a point of view that my wife and I want to install silver. And one of the things that's keeping us from it is the buyback rate that Georgia Power has. And then one of the things that I understand is, totally understand is the infrastructure costs and the maintenance fees and everything. But it's my understanding that Georgia Power is not very transparent about how much those actually cost. I may be misinformed, but this is how I'm thinking. But I'm concerned about the 2.8 since kilowatt hour, whatever it is that I might get paid for anything I over generate. But my thinking is if you go ahead and do this, that you need to pay more than 2.8%. If you're covering sort of your, some of your infrastructure costs and some of your costs, then you need to pay more than 2.8 since kilowatt hour to people that because it seems like in general, this is detrimental to encouraging the installation of solar power. And you could make it encouraging. Let me respond and say that you definitely should consult with someone like, you know, Montana and a company or Don's company, you should get advice before you spend that money and make sure that you're sizing it properly, that everything's kosher because we just had too many people that have launched out and spent $20,000 or $30,000. And they could have done it a little bit differently. And clearly, you know, there's a way to gain the system. And you should talk to Mr. Farmer here about gaining the system and figuring out how to maximize your investment. So that's, that's important for you to do that right. Pretty much been through that a couple of years ago and again recently and I talked to all these folks and this is still a little bit of a stomach block cause in the summer, if I size it well, it seems like to me that George power can pay a little more than that's all I'm saying. And if you're going to do this, you do need to pay more. And it's based on the avoided cost of energy. So if, if, if our energy costs increase in Georgia, let's just say they, let's just hypothetically say your energy costs doubled, then that, that avoided cost would probably double as well or triple and you would get more. So the higher energy prices are, you know, the higher the avoided cost is, but there is a way for you to make money in solar and you just, you just need to talk to the, you know, and get multiple quotes and make sure you're on the right rate plan. Thank you. Also, thanks for what you do it. I'm just going to make a quick comment based on this gentleman's comment. And generally when we look at utility rates and how they apply base rates and how much they compensate for the electricity that you export back, when you have a utility that net meters meaning that they pay back the amount that they charge you for the energy that you export back to them, then it makes sense to, you know, maybe you make up for that with a higher base rate or something like that. If you're not net metering and you're only paying avoided cost, then it would make sense to, to not have a higher base rate. Am I getting that right? I feel like I'm getting a mixed up, but when you have a utility that is, is only paying you avoided cost and charging a high base rate, then that's kind of having your cake and eating it too. And that's what we're, you know, as policy advocates, we try to look out for that and, you know, and make sure, okay, if you're going to do this over here, then there needs to be something more equitable on the other side and vice versa. So just to kind of follow up on your comment. Yes ma'am? Hi, Carol Myers, 30605. I'm not going to say anything all that profound here, but I'm just, I guess, pushing for the kind of rate that has to do more with consumption than the increase in the base rate. I work, I'm working with 100% Athens and we have gotten the resolution here in Athens and are committing ourselves to getting the county government to 100% renewables by 2035 and the rest of the community by 2050. Our group has a real emphasis on reaching 100% of Athens as well, including lower income households. And I, and I feel kind of, you know, we're, we're thinking of programs where we can help people with energy efficiency and such, where we're going, oh, well, let's, let's work on this, but at the same rate, like you're going to cut down your rate here, but we're going to double the base rate. And it seems like it would discourage lower income residents from following through on some of those programs if they're just getting increased in another way. I mean, that's all. You know, I think there is a trend out there for more of a user fee society. So I think you're right. You think about tolls or a user fee. If you go to a state park, you pay a fee and if I don't go to state park, I don't pay the fee. And so more and more, you know, companies and services are moving to this user fee model. So I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for that. I mean, technically, we could take the base rate to zero and, and then raise the consumption and other penny a kilowatt hour or two cents. And that really helped solar customers because now they're avoiding an even, an even higher amount of, of consumption charge. And if, if we were just basing it on solar, we've got about 2000, you know, I guess 2000 rooftop arrays in Georgia power system. Does that sound about right? If we were just basing in on those 2000 customers instead of the other 2.4 million, right? We would make everything perfect for the solar customer. And that's what the Georgia solar, you know, organization is here for. They're here to advocate for their position. And that's exactly what they should be doing. And then inflation, that inflation charge, you know, I think I pulled up something on my phone and put $10 in for 2010. And I think it raised it to like 12, so 1250 years. So it would be 1250 now? I mean, I have to go look at my phone, but it sure wasn't. And that means they would have been collecting a little bit along the way. And there would probably not be a need to, to raise it. So then I hadn't run the math on it. But now that you say that, I'm even more convinced. That's a better idea. Hi, my name's Nikki Luke. And I live at 306, this month in Georgia. Thank you for being here today. I don't have anything that profound to say either, but I just wanted to speak to the perspective of just someone who's a renter and a student and doesn't make a lot of money. I mean, a little over $20,000 last year. And as a graduate student at UGA, I went to four years ago to pursue graduate studies. I haven't gotten raised in 40 years. And I don't get paid in the summer. So this summer in July, it got really hot in our electric bill to $240. That was a lot of money and unexpected. And so we did what we did to try and put that back and like turn our air conditioning up to 80. But I live in an old house, a rent. And I believe in the value of paying taxes. I'm a public employee. And I know all the great things that and services that the state gives us. But as a renter, I don't see Georgia power giving a lot to energy efficiency and giving a lot to people like me. And I really appreciate that you're thinking about like you customers. But like you money runs out. And there's a lot of people in this community that live just above the party line. So my wage, my salary doesn't put me below the poverty line in Atlas Clark County. And there's so many people living on that or just below that. And so when I just want to second what the person performing spoke said about thinking about a consumption based model with maybe like a declining rate structures that people using less power aren't paying as much. And also speak to the fact that these fees, even when we're trying to do things to increase energy efficiency in our home, don't that wouldn't factor into that. So I guess that's about it. And just really emphasizing that energy efficiency, I was excited to see Georgia power or see in that earlier in the summer when the pay and see same model was proposed that would do a lot for a lot of people in this community in terms of any about renters and yes. Just a word. Brian, are you still in the room? Do we how much more did we add to the energy efficiency piece in the IRP? What was the percentage? 15%. So we added 15% more against the companies against Georgia powers, you know, interest wishes and they had to let it be known that they didn't think it was a good idea. We did it anyway. What is IRP? The integrated resource plan. It was passed in 1991 by the legislature. Some mandate to the public service commission to do basically a 20 year strategic plan with a three year update. So it's actually a great idea. It's never been amended. It was passed by a democratically controlled house and it's never been amended. It's a good plan. To your point about renters, there's a lot of rental property here in Athens. It would be great if there was a requirement to have a score, an energy score, so that as you bought a house and there is such a score available, what's that stand for? Home energy rating system. So there's a score that would tell you as a consumer how tight that house was and how how energy efficient it was. It would be great for even a renter to know that. So that when you bought that house, you might know that, hey, something's wrong here. Let's look in the attic. Oh, there's no insulation here. That's why it has this bad score and you would avoid that. That really is something that Athens-Clarke could take a stronger stand on. I mean, Athens has done some very creative things. Their water system, even the workshop next door, signing people up to be able to be notified about leagues. The 40 million Athens is spending on biking infrastructure unprecedented. Nobody else in Georgia is spending that kind of money on biking infrastructure. So this community is not afraid to do bold things. You do have, as a politician, you have limited bandwidth with what you can do. And so maybe they haven't been presented with this idea. Maybe they have, but the next time you're with a city council or commissioner here, you might mention that, that it would be helpful to have houses scored based on their their her score. And I know, I mean, my county commissioner has done a lot around thinking about what affordable housing looks like. And so any property improvement means that it's probably going to be less affordable to renters who don't think enough to afford rent increases. So seeing things like ways that they can be incentivized to implement energy efficiency is important I think. So thanks for working on that hierarchy. It is energy efficiency should be done before solar is put on the home. You need to tighten the envelope before you put the energy plant on top of your house. So clearly I think you've got it in the right order. Thank you, Nikki. Julie Duncan 30605 wanted to reiterate what Michael Songster said very cogently that the lower income people will experience a higher percentage increase with this Mediterranean and the wonderful idea of making those who use more power in this, this, this energy efficiency rate hike tear system. Let's do that. That's really important. And it's working water in Athens, I think, although people in Athens are really conservation minded. But and then also as a United States citizen, I wonder what other state power companies are doing about paying for their coal ash speeds. How do we compare with other states in the way that are those people in other states paying to control this substance that is deemed not toxic. It's very toxic. And then we are the only state where the ratepayers are paying for the construction of a nuclear power plant. And I consider consider that just inexcusable. And it's our politicians who allow it to happen because I think if we had the citizens saying whether or not we would pay, whether or not the power company would pay for their nuclear power plant or whether we would pay for it, I think as in other states, the citizens wouldn't be paying for it. A couple things and you're right. Michael Songster did say put efficiency above all. So where's Michael? Yeah, he's been on my radio show. So yeah, you can go back and listen to the podcast. A couple things, Julie, you all are right. These low users, as we said earlier, are going to be disproportionately affected, except under one circumstance. And that is if they're making their payment at Walmart. If customers are paying any of you pay at a remote location, anybody pay your power bill not online or not through the mail, anybody paying at Walmart? There's a $1.50 charge per payment, a convenience fee, and we're going to eliminate that. So the average person who is a prepaid customer, they're paying about five times a month. So that would be $7.50. So they're going to be the ones that are least impacted. And obviously, nobody is doing that in here. No one's ever made a remote payment ever at any location. But there are people that get paid on Friday that are struggling, that are behind, that when they go in to cash their check or whatever, they make a little payment on their power bill and they pay that $1.50. So that's going to be waived going forward. To your comment about the coal ash on the other states, here's my thinking on that is that I wish we had known 50 years ago that we were going to have coal ash issues. That would have been nice. It might have determined what the commission did 50 years ago. But there's no way to go back. There's a lot of things that this culture did environmentally that it wouldn't do again. Even like the way that a landfill is handled, like the one I visited today in Barnesville, Georgia. So we are more conscientious now. Here's what I asked myself on this coal ash thing. Is it fair that this company, they were in compliance with the EPA all along. Now, because of new rules, they're going to be out of compliance. I hold the consumer's purse as a duly elected regulator. And since they have to now comply and spend $5 billion over the next 15 years moving this ash to a safer location, either putting it in a line pond or a pond that's covered with an impermeable cap. Is it fair for me to now say, after they complied, you know what, we're just going to punish you and make you pay this $5 billion because you should have known better. I just have a problem in my conscience of saying to someone who had played by the rules that you now have to pay for this. I just can't do it. And so as much as I hate wasting $5 billion because that's what it is, we're going to have to comply. Because if we don't, they're going to be fined. And you know what, they're going to pass the fines along to us. So we've got to do this. And obviously, it's in our best interest to get this stuff moved. And we've got wells all around, you know, dozens of wells around these plants that we're testing every six months. And you know, checking to see, you know, I mean, with a third party who has chemists that are looking at this to see, is this getting worse? Is it staying the same? Is it getting better? We're obviously monitoring this. To answer my question, I really appreciate that. To answer my question, do you know what other companies are doing to having their customers pay for the co-excom? I would imagine that those commissions are going to allow or make rate payers pay for it. That is my guess. I mean, you may have a state like California who might say, you know what, we're going to punish you because there have been states that have had this kind of you know, attitude towards utilities. You've seen California do it with PG&E, which virtually bankrupted that company. And by the way, avoided those solar PPAs. And so it's not a good thing to bankrupt, you know, bankrupt the utility. But Georgia's not that kind of state. I don't think we're going to, I don't think we're going to go after the utility in that way. So I've got a few questions first. My name is Aaron Scranton. I actually live in Madison, Georgia, but I serve a lot of the folks in this room and really everywhere in the state on the topic of solar energy generation and clean energy. I tend to have a little bit different viewpoint than a lot of people, and I just like to educate people about those things. But for right now, one thing I'm really curious to know about is if the avoiding cost is calculated on a 24-hour cycle? I think it's annual. I don't think it's annual, but it's based off the value of a kilowatt hour anytime during the day because a kilowatt hour at night is worth a whole lot less than a kilowatt hour during the day. And we only generate solar during the day. And so if we're paying for the avoiding cost of a kilowatt hour based off of an average kilowatt hour's cost, when the nighttime kilowatt hours cost so much less, less disproportionately skewing the average downward from the value of the kilowatt hour we're producing, there are times where real-time customers have kilowatt hour costs that spike well about 30 cents a kilowatt hour during summer afternoons. Solar customers are producing those kilowatt hours, and at times not even using them. Most of the time at night time kilowatt hours are worth about a penny to the utility company. That penny 24-hour or 365 days a year is greatly skewing the average and decreasing the value for these solar customers who are really helping grid a lot and helping the utility a lot. Well then think about this. The two folks with solar arrays that we were talking about, Mark Farmer and then the Morse here. So Mark Farmer's own a time of use rate and he is paying 20 cent from 2 to 7. So any kilowatt he avoids from 2 to 7, he's actually paying himself 20 cent. So that's why I say he's beating the system, where you guys are paying about 11, so you're avoiding 11 cents. So there's a 9 cent difference between what he's making and what you're making. And so that's why I recommend that you go on time of use rate as quick as possible, like call them tonight and go on it. And to address your point, because I consult people about this every day, any time I have the ability to boost somebody to a time of use rate when it really makes sense for them with solar generation, oh it's definitely a recommendation because with a small percentage of your consumption you can avoid a much larger percentage of your bill. It's the best way to get an actually attractive payback in this state. It's really the only way. And I'm no fool. I mean I talk to people at least four or five people a day that I literally call on the phone and talk to you about this in George Power. So I know exactly where you're coming from. But I also know how much value that really has to the utility company versus that nighttime electricity. And despite what you're saying, because I agree and I'm going to keep pushing people towards those rates and those fact those rates exist, make our company able to exist in a large way too. But it's still not fair in terms of the avoided cost. It seems like yes that's right, that's beautiful, but it's not addressing the actual question. Why is avoiding cost calculating nighttime expense? Can I ask you a question about being on a time of use rate plan and generating more than you're using? So you're actually exporting energy. You're on a time of use rate plan and you're exporting energy at the peak time from two to seven or whatever the case may be. How much is that kilowatt hour worth danger exporting? Well, the rate would say it's 20 cents, but once you've totaled everything in it's more like 24 cents a kilowatt hour or something along those lines I don't know. All the percentage modifiers affected. So do you get reimbursed 24 cents when you export energy during the peak time? Absolutely, you get reimbursed your three cents a kilowatt hour because that's flat. Now if you're on sunny EMC you'll certainly get reimbursed your time of use rate for your export. Yeah, they're on a net billing. Net billing and the net billing does include time of use. The company over there recognizes when I just pushed a button. Sorry about that. But that company over there and Georgia Power has the same capability. They recognize the value of a kilowatt hour during their peak times. They have a little bit of larger peak time, but at the same time they recognize the value and if they export a kilowatt hour during peak they're going to get the full retail value of that kilowatt hour. Well, I might also add in addition to the time you're generating and exporting that energy also the location should be factored in because I think a kilowatt hour generated on the roof of this building during the day is worth more than one out in the middle of South Georgia somewhere that's away from a load center because that electricity has to travel over long distance transmission and just distribution lines to get to its destination. Luckily out of the IRP at the Integrated Resource Plant that we had earlier this year one thing that came out of that is a review of avoided costs and it'll be after the rate case and the beginning of next year maybe January or February where the PSC will be undergoing a review of avoided cost and a lot of this will be hashed out. Now what you speak of is really the true value of solar right and and really for about five years this locational pricing this locational adjustment based on putting solar in a very congested area would make it more valuable should make it more valuable to the company if they're not having to build that substation or upgrade that transformer right that solar help them and you know as a you know as a politician you have you have a certain amount of capital you have you have you have you have a limited amount of political capital and and I spend all of mine I spend it all and I've I've I've worked on this issue but I haven't had enough in the bank to be able to make this change and I haven't been able to convince my colleagues I've pestered people I pestered keep it up that's not that's not necessarily effective pestering is not necessarily effective but I'm I hear you you're right but I haven't been able to get that done and I'm sorry and I haven't but I'm not done yet I appreciate and this guy's this guy's helping me he helps me a lot I understand it's not like you're the only guy running the public service commission you're one of the commissioners I understand that I appreciate your assistance on the issue um one of the other things that we're here to talk about is the flat rate and I just got to side with everybody that I'm concerned about the most vulnerable population in it realistically I solar or not I don't care it seems like the most vulnerable people will be the most affected by this flat rate and I that bugs me and I think it bugs anybody with a heart that the most you know the least of us get hit with a burden beyond which we can bear um the only question I have about that is people with money can get a solar people with money can make efficiency improvements people without money can't even make the efficiency improvements and so have you done any kind of study looking at how much does this hurt people in section eight homes that don't have the even the efficiency improvements and how that balances out I have not the only comparison I had them make was lieheap customers versus super heavy use customers that use 2000 kilowatt hours or more and then that all the way down to the 600 600 and when I saw the figure on the lieheap I did breathe a little bit easier um but yeah we I haven't I haven't drilled down you know to find out you know more about those folks that are only using 600 kilowatts kilowatt hours that's a very small amount of power and so that's a person probably that's not using air condition you know that may have just a one one bedroom you know house so yeah I will there's an amazing number of people in this town that have more than one bedroom and use that much energy I have to say that I look at these people's power bills all the time they do an amazing job of conserving energy I'm hearing a theme here though and I heard it in Savannah last night and that is don't let that base rate jump that high is that what I'm hearing you say yeah yeah so um and I think that that goes across the yeah yeah and I will fight for that I'll give you I'll give you my word that I will fight for that one last thing I'd like to just make as a final comment is uh distributed generation obviously is overlooked as a part of grid resilience that's something that a lot of people never really think about when they talk about solar and battery storage besides the obvious equity independence and other factors that you could mention grid resilience is a huge thing and building a micro grid is a massively important thing as we move into an uncertain future I have family and military intelligence and cybersecurity and nuclear is clean when Russia and China don't get in and push your buttons and I'm not here to be a fear monger but those countries have managed to get into other countries grids before and we've got a lot of nuclear power on the eastern seaboard a lot we're just building more in Georgia yeah these things are clean until your Fukushima until your Chernobyl or until China or Russia decide this game on and that bothers me a lot not only that but if you do studies on how a population fares when the grid goes down it's frightening and so anything we can do to build more resilience in our population is a necessity yeah I hear you and we approve 80 megawatts of batteries and if these batteries go well I anticipate us doing 10 or 20 times in three years so we'll we'll see how they go thank you thank you Erin I just want to pass this around before people leave because the the the partnership for Southern Equity is helping sponsor a band or of us to do an anti-November 5th to speak to the public service thank you we're going to go for maybe these last two folks that are waiting will be our our last two commenters and then we'll wrap things up so thank you thank you commissioner eckles my name is Craig Topple 30606 please send my regards to your colleague commissioner mcdonald I pastored his the church he grew up in for a few years so it's commerce press material yes sir that's right um to answer a question that was brought up earlier about um I think somebody mentioned about CEO pay CEO of Southern Company is set to make about 13 million dollars I think per year and uh he just bought a 5.3 million dollar home property in Atlanta looks like um and it looks like Southern Company stock has done pretty well I'm wondering when this was announced because it looks like just this fiscal year just the year to date this stocks up about 80 percent um so I was curious you know investors are fusing forward looking when was this proposed to have this and was this a roll out across Southern Company entities or is this just just some of the Georgia power students well are you referring to the proposed increase in rates right yeah it was Southern Company you know wanting that across the board with all their we don't we don't regulate Southern Company right so we only regulate that one unit so Alabama power does their own rate cases Mississippi does their own rate cases so is what was it proposed by Georgia power I'm sorry when was this proposed by Georgia power our our rate case right yes yeah so it's due every three years uh is it's the calendar we have them on so it was submitted earlier we had just the first set of hearings two weeks ago okay we'll have another set of hearings on November 4th for that week and then we'll vote December the 4th the new rates would take effect January 1st okay I was just wondering maybe they had just made a decision about making these increases and that's what they said such a I think it was actually filed on October 3rd the compact you know this regulatory contact the original rate case was found in September it could have been some of those proposed within the interim but yeah thank you again for your service and for your work for the for the average citizens and our needs here thank you for harmonic solar too I really appreciate your setting an example for that as for the rest of us attempt to do that in our own lives it's helpful to have someone like you doing that so thank you thank you for your comments all right we've got about five more minutes so we're let's try to we're trying to get through these quickly hello I'm Gayle Gill and my zip code is 30622 and my question is there's a lot of comments about how the rate increase was 80% of the costs were collected in the base and so that means only 20% are in the lower part can you give us a reasoning behind that and why wouldn't it be the other way around perhaps like 20% on the base and 30% on the variable rate because as everyone said it seems to be regressive and hurts the lower income people the most yeah I don't work for Georgia Power but I'll tell you what they told me okay all right so they said that because they haven't raised this in you know in many years that the fixed costs to service a customer whether that be the billing piece of it or the meter or any of the fixed costs that they have hasn't kept up with the times and that they are quote wanting to modernize the rate and and have it be more accurate right that that you can't really do anything for ten dollars and certainly not service you know the fixed cost of an electric customer that's the the case that they made so I don't know that you know I don't know that they're going to get this but their rates will go up because we are I'm sorry I'm sorry to sit to cut in because we are obligated to provide them the resources that they need to run that company it's just a matter of how are we going to divide divide that out how who's going to pay what share of that in industry versus restaurants versus commercial customers versus retail versus consumers you get the idea well I was just trying to understand the reason why that split seems so awkward you know lives are good and you've expressed what that is and as you've said it seems like such a big jump on the face and maybe we're not going through that and I'd like to thank you for your efforts and so thank you thank you thank you thank you my name is Mary Beth Toffett 306 of six uh I moved here nine years ago and we were told there are AMCs and all this kind of stuff and where I live I don't have a choice I can only have Georgia power or I guess my choice is I can have no power or you can move well so we bought a house and invested a lot in buying energy efficient appliances and replacing a 24 year old HVAC it's seven seven seven um you know the difference between paying you you were talking about investments you're saying Georgia power says they need to pay investments and you use your example was 30 acres on the Chattanooga for something to do 7000 but it's close so you know if I'm a member of the Walton EMC and they make an investment and they buy 300,000 acres of land and then they decide later to sell it I get some of that money back but if Georgia power does they say they decide to sell the coal the area where the coal plant is they then they let's pretend they make money on it I don't think I see any back I don't think that you're you're getting you're getting money back all the time you just don't know it is it's not put up put on your bill on a line item but the fly ash that they sell into the concrete business half the ash the new ash coming out of the coal plants going right into the concrete being put into inert structures like your highway like a skyscraper bridges and you're getting you're getting the money for that and that's put against what we you know our ratepayers owe them so yes you're getting 100 of that as a credit back against it's a hidden it is well we can't we can't do a line item for everything right so so the other thing that I would just like to say is you're thinking about coal ash when you were saying well we didn't know and so now now we have to comply with the new regulations so we have to pay for it and I think that's pretty true except I don't think they didn't know um people have been dying from working from breathing coal ash for 300 years and so what really worries me about the nuclear ones is that nobody's talking about fushi or one person has mentioned it and if a solar plant explodes people don't have to move away for 300 years and I don't think that they're being you know the company that was building that actually went out of business they declared bankruptcy and and I think that not having a choice makes me feel very frustrated because I know that Walton is heavily invested in solar and that sort of thing and I don't know what it is about it but just having to pay for it and having it put into things like base rate when my power bill is automatically billed it's automatically collected there's not a human hand that touches that are they charging me more for that I don't understand that and so I really wish that they would make the fees more transparent as to what we're actually paying for because just like you said using that that leftover ash and that kind of stuff in industrial applications doesn't make me feel a little better now okay thank you thank you so much all right our last commenter and they will wrap things up yes hi I'll be quick I'm Gabrielle and Steve I'm a graduate student at UGA and renter in the code 30606 I'd like to echo a lot of the concerns expressed tonight about the effect of the mandatory fee on the increase on low income folks recognizing that the county I live in has among the highest poverty rates in all of Georgia on the highest my graduate teaching assistantship buys me with about $14,000 annually so yeah just echoing the fact that the mandatory fee increase um unfairly burdens low income folks and I'm also concerned about the fact that low income folks are required to bear so much the burden of the coal ash cleaner for the toxins released in their communities and their water by Georgia power I don't see it as just about EPA compliance because the EPA has effectively been allowing this pollution to take place um and while I absolutely agree these sites urgently need to be cleaned up there's no question about that I'm just wondering why shareholders aren't expected to pay more um to remove toxins from these communities and I'm wondering why um these costs are shifted to ratepayers who have also who have done nothing wrong um but have been experiencing this pollution through the mandatory fee that seems to unfairly burden low income customers so I just wanted to express those concerns here and thank you I appreciate um you come to this town hall and thank you thank you camp rail and thank you everybody for for coming I want to also thank our hosts that helped put this together there's a lot of a lot of work behind the scenes that goes into stuff like this so um I want to thank everybody but more than that um I think uh uh you would all join me in thanking commissioner tim apple who's from the USC commissioner out there and I've said that publicly in front of some of the other ones that gotten some slack but um I mean that he was in savannah yesterday but talking about this and here today and um he's very accessible so if you did not get a chance to ask him a question or comment I believe you have some cards and um I think you will find that he will be very responsive to your questions and um he's uh he's one of the good ones so thanks a lot everybody and thank you mr. apple thank you all