MARIETTA — Cobb EMC’s board of directors voted Monday to stop financing its share in a consortium intending to build a huge coal-fired power plant known as Plant Washington.
The vote came as little surprise, as just before Christmas, Cobb EMC began seeking bids for its future power supplies, and CEO Chip Nelson confirmed to the Journal two weeks ago that the nonprofit electric cooperative was losing interest in building the 850-megawatt plant in Sandersville.
“Going forward, we will continue to work together to provide the most reliable supply of electric energy at the most reasonable cost to our members,” Nelson said in a news release issued Tuesday evening. “The power supply contracts we are pursuing for 2016-2021 will assure that for the near future.”
A consortium of five EMCs in Georgia, under the name Power 4 Georgians, has been working for the last several years on getting permits for the plant. Cobb EMC has already put in $13.5 million toward the plans, and its 2012 contribution was to be about $1.7 million more.
The utility may be able to recoup some of its costs if it can sell its share of the plant, though environmentalists and other critics say the costs of building new coal plants is too high.
Interestingly, the news release announcing the vote notes that “a majority of the board voted” to end the funding, but did not specify what the actual vote was or who made the motion. The board has 10 seats, though one seat is currently vacant after the end-of-year resignation of longtime member Sarah Brown. That indicates that at least five of the board members voted against the project. Four new members were elected to the board last November, including David Tennant, who has a background in power generation.
The possibility of new federal environmental regulations also made the costs unclear, according to the news release. Earlier this month, Sam Kelly, a Cobb EMC vice president, admitted the utility has never done a pro forma cost estimate on Plant Washington, which supporters estimated would cost $2 billion to build.
Mark Hackett, a Cobb EMC customer who also made a career in the power-generation industry, said the vote is “a victory for all Cobb EMC customers.”
“They were just about to go down this path that just didn’t make any doggone sense. I’ve been doing this a long time and this was a very bad idea foisted on some people that really weren’t watching the ball, or didn’t have the skills to recognize a very bad decision when it was looking them straight in the face.”
Dean Alford, the spokesman for Power 4 Georgians, previously told the Journal he would make his case for continued funding of Plant Washington to the Cobb EMC board on Tuesday. Alford is the CEO of Allied Energy Services, which previously was a wholly owned subsidiary of Cobb EMC’s for-profit spin-off Cobb Energy. Allied Energy Services recived a no-bid contract to develop Plant Washington.
As for the $13.5 million Cobb EMC has already shelled out for Plant Washington, Hackett offered this perspective:
“At 200,000 members, that’s about $65 per member they’ve spent on this plant. Take $2 billion (the estimated cost of Plant Washington) and divide it by 200,000 members, and it’s a completely different story. That’s $20,000 a member,” he said. “We got soaked for $65 a member, but we just saved $20,000 per member — though Cobb EMC wasn’t the only partner in this. But even so, it could have still cost at least $10,000 per Cobb EMC member. This could have been an even bigger fiasco. If you want Plant Washington, get out your checkbook.”
Activist groups were also elated at the news.
Joel Mendelson, of Take Back Cobb EMC, said in a statement: “We’re pleased that the board, with the leadership of its newest members, has helped cut an albatross from the neck of Cobb EMC members, by eliminating funding to Plant Washington. We believe the plant was nothing more than a pet project for a handful of Dwight Brown’s friends to gain while hard-working EMC members would see their electricity skyrocket.”
Seth Gunning, an organizer with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign and who also is a Cobb EMC customer, said: “The directors did the right thing today. Funding this project was an expensive mistake for EMC members. We are thrilled that the Board made this smart, honorable decision, and all EMC members and Georgia residents will reap the benefits.”
Snapping Shoals, Central Georgia and Washington EMCs are the other partners in Power 4 Georgians consortium which had also proposed to build a second large coal-fired plant in south Georgia to be called Plant Ben Hill.
Marietta Home Sale
The vote came as little surprise, as just before Christmas, Cobb EMC began seeking bids for its future power supplies, and CEO Chip Nelson confirmed to the Journal two weeks ago that the nonprofit electric cooperative was losing interest in building the 850-megawatt plant in Sandersville.
“Going forward, we will continue to work together to provide the most reliable supply of electric energy at the most reasonable cost to our members,” Nelson said in a news release issued Tuesday evening. “The power supply contracts we are pursuing for 2016-2021 will assure that for the near future.”
A consortium of five EMCs in Georgia, under the name Power 4 Georgians, has been working for the last several years on getting permits for the plant. Cobb EMC has already put in $13.5 million toward the plans, and its 2012 contribution was to be about $1.7 million more.
The utility may be able to recoup some of its costs if it can sell its share of the plant, though environmentalists and other critics say the costs of building new coal plants is too high.
Interestingly, the news release announcing the vote notes that “a majority of the board voted” to end the funding, but did not specify what the actual vote was or who made the motion. The board has 10 seats, though one seat is currently vacant after the end-of-year resignation of longtime member Sarah Brown. That indicates that at least five of the board members voted against the project. Four new members were elected to the board last November, including David Tennant, who has a background in power generation.
The possibility of new federal environmental regulations also made the costs unclear, according to the news release. Earlier this month, Sam Kelly, a Cobb EMC vice president, admitted the utility has never done a pro forma cost estimate on Plant Washington, which supporters estimated would cost $2 billion to build.
Mark Hackett, a Cobb EMC customer who also made a career in the power-generation industry, said the vote is “a victory for all Cobb EMC customers.”
“They were just about to go down this path that just didn’t make any doggone sense. I’ve been doing this a long time and this was a very bad idea foisted on some people that really weren’t watching the ball, or didn’t have the skills to recognize a very bad decision when it was looking them straight in the face.”
Dean Alford, the spokesman for Power 4 Georgians, previously told the Journal he would make his case for continued funding of Plant Washington to the Cobb EMC board on Tuesday. Alford is the CEO of Allied Energy Services, which previously was a wholly owned subsidiary of Cobb EMC’s for-profit spin-off Cobb Energy. Allied Energy Services recived a no-bid contract to develop Plant Washington.
As for the $13.5 million Cobb EMC has already shelled out for Plant Washington, Hackett offered this perspective:
“At 200,000 members, that’s about $65 per member they’ve spent on this plant. Take $2 billion (the estimated cost of Plant Washington) and divide it by 200,000 members, and it’s a completely different story. That’s $20,000 a member,” he said. “We got soaked for $65 a member, but we just saved $20,000 per member — though Cobb EMC wasn’t the only partner in this. But even so, it could have still cost at least $10,000 per Cobb EMC member. This could have been an even bigger fiasco. If you want Plant Washington, get out your checkbook.”
Activist groups were also elated at the news.
Joel Mendelson, of Take Back Cobb EMC, said in a statement: “We’re pleased that the board, with the leadership of its newest members, has helped cut an albatross from the neck of Cobb EMC members, by eliminating funding to Plant Washington. We believe the plant was nothing more than a pet project for a handful of Dwight Brown’s friends to gain while hard-working EMC members would see their electricity skyrocket.”
Seth Gunning, an organizer with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign and who also is a Cobb EMC customer, said: “The directors did the right thing today. Funding this project was an expensive mistake for EMC members. We are thrilled that the Board made this smart, honorable decision, and all EMC members and Georgia residents will reap the benefits.”
Snapping Shoals, Central Georgia and Washington EMCs are the other partners in Power 4 Georgians consortium which had also proposed to build a second large coal-fired plant in south Georgia to be called Plant Ben Hill.
Marietta Home Sale
No comments:
Post a Comment