Current Events Watch

‘The Southeast has been portrayed as a region that will face significant cost and difficulty meeting a national RES due to scarce access to renewable energy resources. This assertion is simply inaccurate,’ the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s February report, Yes We Can: Southern Solutions for a National Renewable Energy Standard says. The heavily forested region could meet nearly two-thirds of a national standard through biomass generation using wood products or energy crops. In addition, the region has solar energy potential. It is not as vast as the Southwestern states because the Southeast has frequent cloud cover, but solar is still capable of providing 7% of the region’s electricity. Indeed, the report cites several solar projects under development, particularly in North Carolina and Florida, by Duke Energy, SunEdison, Progress Energy, Vanir Energy, and FPL Energy. In addition, Florida’s Gainesville Regional Utilities have developed a solar photovoltaic feed-in tariff, one of North America’s first. Another Florida utility, Lakeland Electric, was the first company in the U.S. to quantify RECs from solar hot water production.

Rhone Resch, CEO and president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, says the Southeast has vast potential for solar energy development. Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina have solar resources 60% better than Germany.

‘In Georgia, 23.6% of electricity could come from rooftop solar alone. As a policy investment, solar is one of the best values for putting Americans back to work and creating growth opportunities for utilities and small businesses alike in the Southeast and across the country,’ he says.

Georgia could gain added capacity from large-scale photovoltaic projects, similar to those underway in Florida and North Carolina, according to SEIA. The organization points out that in North Carolina, Duke Energy plans to buy more than 10 MW from a solar farm being built by SunEdison in Davidson County. And Florida Power & Light has already begun building the state’s first concentrating solar power plant north of Palm Beach County.

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