Solar Power Booms in Georgia, Where It Isn’t Mandated

Georgia has no mandates requiring power companies to add renewable energy and hasn’t made climate change a political priority. Solar power is booming there anyway.

The state went from having virtually no solar industry a decade ago to ranking ninth nationwide in installed solar capacity this year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Solar has flourished in Georgia as tech companies such as Facebook Inc. look to locate facilities near cheap renewable-energy sources and rural communities turn to solar farms to create tax revenues and jobs.

Much of the initial build-out of solar and wind power in the U.S. over the past three decades was driven by mandates in states such as Iowa, California, Colorado and New York that required utilities to source a certain amount of renewables. But wind and solar are now gaining market share even in states with no such requirements, as Georgia’s experience shows.

Republican regulators have pushed the state’s major utility, Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power, to invest in solar, saying that economic factors make it an attractive energy source beyond its carbon-free characteristics.

“Don’t come into my office talking about climate change or the environment,” said Tim Echols, who has served for the past decade on the elected, all-Republican public-service commission that regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities. “Talk about new jobs, talk about low-cost energy, talk about reduction of transmission lines,” he said. “Learn to speak Republican here.”