Two new Georgia Power green products approved

State utility regulators OK’d two new cut-rate green power products for Georgia Power on Tuesday.

The lower prices, though, come with their own price.

The Georgia Public Service Commission also shifted the risk for the company’s green program away from the company’s stockholders and onto its customers.

The risk may be minimal: Georgia Power’s green program turned the corner this year.

But the company’s big industrial customers don’t like the change.

The new green program will offer small customers the same $4.50 per 100 kilowatt-hour blocks of green power that the company sells now.

The $4.50 product will become the company’s “premium” offering, intended to pay for power from all renewable sources, including pricey ones like solar power.

A new offering will charge $1 less for 100 kwh of power produced from the cheapest sources, such as landfill gas. Typical households use 1,000 kwh per month.

Big customers will get even cheaper green energy.

Customers who buy 400 blocks of the $3.50 product — or 40,000 kwh — will qualify for a discount on additional purchases, as long as they agree to buy 50,000 kwh more.

The company will negotiate that discount and the source of the green power on a case-by-case basis.

Georgia Power has said the large volume program is intended for big customers who are clamoring for more green power, in part because of its marketing advantages.

Federal customers under mandates to buy green power also benefit. Robins Air Force Base, near Macon, buys 40 percent of the green energy Georgia Power sells now.

Georgia Power will begin rolling out its new offerings in the next few weeks, spokeswoman Lynn Wallace said.

Risk factor

The most controversial part of the revised program is the shift in who’s at risk.

In the past, stockholders paid for costs that exceeded revenues.

Now those costs would be added into the fuel charges on customer bills.

Georgia Power’s Wallace said the company has agreed to quarterly reporting on its green power finances, and that it intends to spend no more than it collects.

Industrial power customers, though, say the change could put them on the hook for a program they don’t use. Fuel charges are the biggest part of their bill.

“Really, the program needs to stand on its own,” said Roy Bowen, lobbyist for the Georgia Traditional Manufacturers Association.

“Manufacturers, who are struggling in today’s economy, don’t want to pick up costs that they didn’t cause and don’t enjoy the benefits of.”

Any excess revenues from the green program also could be applied toward fuel charges, lowering costs. They also could be used to lower the green premium further, or to purchase more green power.

Georgia Power’s green program headed into the black for the first time this year largely because the PSC objected to what the company counted as costs.

The company agreed to cut $184,000 from its green marketing costs and allocate the costs to other parts of its budget. The money was for donating solar panels to 10 schools.

The PSC unanimously approved the new green program.

It also approved an amendment by member Doug Everett, saying the PSC could revisit the risk issue later.

Although the amendment appeared innocuous — the PSC can revisit anything — Georgia Power said it was still studying it Tuesday afternoon.