The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) today neglected an opportunity to pursue equity in rates for residential and small business customers.

These customer classes have funded the vast majority (80%-90% of around $4 billion) collected through the Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery (NCCR) rider while Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4 have been under construction for the last 14 years. Large industrial customers, on the other hand, have been largely exempt from the NCCR rider and have only contributed around 10%.

Equal is not the same as equitable! Instead of considering what residential and small business customers have already paid toward Units 3 & 4, the PSC approved a negotiated settlement that allocates the associated rate increase equally across all base rate tariffs. This was the biggest disappointment from today’s PSC decision.

The precedent for this was set with another negotiated settlement in 2021. Back then, Georgia Power argued that “equal” allocation was the best they could do without performing a cost-of-service study. That might have been excusable for the initial allocation but it’s dereliction-of-duty that Georgia Power didn’t perform the cost-of-service study two years later. And by letting them get away with it, the PSC is as guilty as they are.

The Vogtle cost recovery settlement that the PSC approved today does limit the total impact on ratepaying customers that are served by Georgia Power Company. Under the stipulation, the Company’s shareholders will be absorbing about half of the exorbitant cost overruns. The final figure approved for inclusion into Georgia Power’s rate base will be $7.562 Billion of capital and construction costs (not including finance cost). The Company had initially requested $8.826 billion (and its share for the total capital and construction cost is upward of $10 billion.) So the impact could have been even worse. Still, however, rates for a typical residential customer will increase by an additional 5%. This will add to the severe energy burden many Georgians already experience.

SACE acknowledges some valid attempts in the stipulation to provide or expand savings opportunities for customers. The commitment to expand demand-side management programs, like energy efficiency, after 2025 is a welcome addition. And SACE is pleased that the Income Qualified Senior Discount will no longer be limited exclusively to seniors. But SACE is disappointed that the stipulation neglects other opportunities to prepare Georgia’s power grid for more clean energy generation and protect ratepayers from costly mistakes like Vogtle in the future.

The post Dereliction of Duty appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Dereliction of Duty

Renewable Energy

Hitting the Tipping Point

Published

8 hours ago

September 8, 2026

Alice Rush

Have we hit the tipping point on climate change? For example, has the melting permafrost in the Arctic released so much methane that a runaway feedback loop has been established?

As suggested at left, an analogous question could be asked about the level corruption in the U.S. government.

Hitting the Tipping Point

Renewable Energy

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Published

17 hours ago

September 8, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Nordex closes in on Vestas in onshore orders, GE Vernova rebuilds its wind team, Nexxis buys BladeBug, and wooden blades draw doubts.

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Nordex Outsells Vestas, GE Vernova Rebuilds Wind Team

Renewable Energy

Siemens Gamesa Builds Hornsea Blades, NEMS Invests in Perth

Published

2 days ago

September 7, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Siemens Gamesa Builds Hornsea Blades, NEMS Invests in Perth

Siemens Gamesa starts Hornsea 3 blade production in Hull, Germany approves an Offshore Wind Act amendment, and Nexxis buys BladeBUG.

Episode Transcript

Uptime News Flash
September 7, 2026
Happy Monday, everyone. Well, let’s talk about the biggest wind farm on earth. It doesn’t exist yet, but its blades are being built right now. Over in Hull, England, Siemens Gamesa just started making blades for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm. That’s two point nine gigawatts, one hundred and ninety-seven turbines. Each blade is longer than a football pitch. Fourteen hundred workers build blades in that factory, turning raw materials into finished product. When complete, Hornsea 3 will power more than three million British homes. It’s the single largest offshore wind farm in the world.
And if we slide over to Germany for a moment, the German cabinet just approved an amendment to the Offshore Wind Act, the WindSeeG. It’s headed to the Bundestag next. The goal? New rules by January first, twenty twenty-seven. But the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation says the draft does not go far enough. Sixteen gigawatts of awarded projects are still waiting on final investment decisions. Sixteen — that’s quite a few. The foundation wants a new way for developers to hand back sites they can’t build, so those sites can be re-tendered quickly under conditions that actually work. Sort of a use-it-or-lose-it approach. That’s the idea.
We’ll head a little further east to India. India ranks fourth in the world for installed wind power, but probably not for long. A government official said this week that India will overtake Germany and become the world’s third-largest wind energy nation by twenty thirty — one hundred seven gigawatts of installed capacity. India added a record six gigawatts last year alone, shattering their previous record of a little over four gigawatts. And twenty-eight more gigawatts are under construction right now. Impressive.
Let’s head down to Western Australia, because a company called National Electric Motor Services, NEMS for short, is building a one million dollar facility in Perth to test and repair wind turbine generators. Right now, Australian wind farm operators ship their broken generators overseas for repairs, and that takes months. NEMS is the only authorized service center for ELIN Motoren in all of Western Australia. This is the fifth project funded through Australia’s Wind Energy Manufacturing Co-investment program. Local repair, faster turnaround, and homegrown capability — that’s all good.
And staying in Australia, Perth-based Nexxis Technology just bought a British robotics company, BladeBUG. BladeBUG is a robot that uses suction cups to crawl across wind turbine blades. Nexxis already has a robot called Magneto that uses electromagnetic adhesion to climb steel structures. If you put the two together, you can inspect almost any surface on a turbine, or about anything else. Add AI and machine vision, and you have robots that can see what human eyes might miss, from places human hands shouldn’t have to reach. It’s safer, faster, and it’s going to be a lot smarter.
One more story before we finish today. Siemens Gamesa has now installed more than 300 recyclable blades in six countries. The secret is a new resin. Unlike conventional resins, this one lets you separate the blade components at end of life, so you can separate the fabric from the resin. Cool stuff. Jonas Pagh Jensen, head of sustainability at Siemens Gamesa, says the technology is ready for full-scale use. And Siemens Gamesa has already installed 36 GreenerTower units — steel towers with 63% lower carbon emissions. So although sustainability may have faded from the headlines, it’s still in tender documents, and it’s showing up more than ever. In Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, buyers are all asking about recyclability and decarbonization before they award contracts.
So what should you be watching this week? Recyclability is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have, and it’s showing up in tender scoring. If your blades can’t be recycled at end of life, you may not win the contract to begin with. And a lot of supply chains are going local. Australia doesn’t want to ship generators overseas anymore. India is building its own turbine factories. The countries buying wind power want it built at home. For professionals in the wind industry, the competitive edge is shifting — it’s not just who can build the best turbine, it’s who can build it locally, recycle it fully, and inspect it without putting a person in a harness.