PSC hearings disrupted by protestors after surprise agreement with Georgia Power

Police escorted demonstrators from a Georgia Citizens Provision Commission meeting on Wednesday morning following the introduction of a surprise agreement between commission staff and Georgia Power the utility it is charged with regulating The commission is set to discuss a request from Georgia Power to increase the state s vitality threshold by nearly megawatts equal to about five Hoover Dams to meet an expected spike in demand because of new energy-hungry input center improvement Staff initially recommended approving only about one-third of the utility s request and granting conditional approval to another third but changed their recommendation to agree with Georgia Power to move forward with the full request Several people disrupted the start of proceedings with chants of Rein in Georgia Power and Power to the people not Georgia Power and were escorted out According to law enforcement no one was arrested and several people were allowed to return to the hearing Georgia Power spokesperson Matthew Kent stated in a report that the company welcomes all populace comment during this key process but these residents hearings are in professional settings that require an amount of decorum In exchange for allowing Georgia Power s strength buildout of at least billion with of it intended to power records center enhancement Georgia Power promised to lower power bills by about a year in its subsequent rate episode proceedings Because Georgia Power and the commission agreed to a three-year rate freeze the promised savings wouldn t be considered by the commission until after This plan means more money stays in your pocket while we power Georgia s future declared Georgia Power s head Kim Greene in a announcement But environmental organizations involved in the proceedings weren t convinced about Georgia Power s promise that the deal would lead to downward pressure on customers power bills Jennifer Whitfield a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center disclosed during lunch break that there is no guarantee the decrease will ever materialize and it was unclear what the customer got out of the deal It doesn t mean that in residential customers will see their bills go down What it means is that when they do all the various accounting they promise that if we have a rate occurrence which we may not that this class of customers will put downward pressure on the costs otherwise attributed to residential customers which is just a really long complicated way of saying we don t know what s going to happen Whitfield noted At the start of the hearing Whitfield sought commissioners for additional time to review the agreement saying they had not had enough time because they became aware of it on their commute to the hearing PSC Chair Jason Shaw stated that because of the general hearings lawyers for the advocacy organizations had the morning to review the agreement and could leave the room if they wished There ll be certain more time there We will presumably not even get to the hearing until after lunch Shaw explained This is a progressing story and will be updated The post PSC hearings disrupted by protestors after surprise agreement with Georgia Power appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta