Georgia Power agrees to give community solar a path forward

Georgia Power agreed to modify its customer-sited solar-plus-storage pilot program, according to a document obtained by pv magazine USA.

According to the agreement, signed by nonprofit Capital Good Fund and Georgia Power, the increased aggregate system size limit will require Georgia Power to reexamine the interconnection study fee for customer generation.

Georgia Power also agreed to meet with Capital Good Fund by Sept. 30, 2025 to “provide written certainty on a path forward that Georgia Power can support for community solar.”

The agreement also says Georgia Power will work “in good faith with Capital Good Fund to develop solutions that enable and enhance the customer experience of onsite solar and storage systems for customers in multifamily premises.”

(Read: Georgia rooftop solar program “levels the playing field” for low-income households)

Georgia Power had restrictive size caps for distributed solar+storage, and limited access for multifamily and low-income customers under the Solar for All program, Russ Bates, founder and CEO of NXTGEN Clean Energy Solutions, who testified in front of the commission earlier this year, told pv magazine USA.

Georgia Power cited safety concerns, mainly about transformer overloading and the cost of equipment upgrades. However, Bates said they pushed back against these claims with examples and data, including Georgia’s own interconnection review process, showing that Georgia Power already provides the necessary safeguards to responsibly support larger systems.

The final outcome expands eligibility for larger distributed solar and energy storage systems across residential, public-serving and nonprofit sectors, Bates said. It also establishes a formal process to enable multifamily participation — with stakeholder meetings required in the next six months.

Bates said Georgia’s signed commitment to work with Capital Good fund to finalize a viable community solar model is most significant.

“This is Georgia’s first formal utility-backed move toward a low-income-focused community solar structure tied to Solar for All funding,” he said. “It’s a major shift.”

Georgia’s past attempts for community solar legislation

While Georgia Power has historically pushed back against community solar, Bates said, “Georgia Power seems to be receptive to community solar.”

Georgia Power needs more electrons, he said. “If someone can own and operate and sell those electrons to Georgia Power that they then then resell, as long as everything pencils out the right way for everybody, then [community solar] makes a lot of sense.”

Georgia has been working to pass community solar legislation for a number of years. However, neither the House nor Senate version of this year’s “Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025″ made it to a vote. The Republican-backed bill would have allowed private developers to participate in a community solar program within Georgia’s regulated energy market.

When Georgia introduced a similar bill last year, Georgia Power said it was “adamantly opposed” to the bill, calling it “a solution in search of a problem.”

At the time, Georgia Power cited the fact that Georgia is a top ten state for solar installation capacity. However, Georgia ranks in the bottom ten for distributed solar like rooftop residential, commercial and industrial, and community solar.

In November, Georgia’s House of Representatives Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Ad Hoc Committee held another offseason meeting for solar advocates and Georgia Power to rehash the running debate.

“[Utilities] lose revenue and profit when people save on their bills, but lost revenue is not the same thing as increasing the cost for other people,” Bob Sherrier, attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said during the hearing.

Sherrier said Georgia Power is not entitled to revenue lost when customers lower their bills. “If somebody buys an energy-efficient fridge and uses less power that year, Georgia Power doesn’t get to add a charge to their bill to recover the money that they thought they were going to recover,” he said.

Georgia Power redacted the data in its public filings that allegedly showed community solar isn’t cost effective, calling the data trade secrets.

“Every single one of those redacted numbers is a benefit of distributed generation,” Sherrier said. “The only number that’s not redacted is the cost.”

The full hearing is available here.

Georgia’s path forward

Georgia Power’s agreement to provide support for community solar does not mention whether it would enable private developers to own community solar projects, nor does it provide any other details to what the program would entail.

However, to Bates, the agreement is good news.

“There’s so much bad news with relation to clean energy right now,” Bates said. “Even as these national politics kind of lean back towards fossil fuels, I mean the reality on the ground is it’s really shifting in a different direction.”

Georgia Power’s agreement “proves that clean energy isn’t just technically viable, it’s the smarter, more resilient path forward,” he said.

“As time goes on, if these big utility scale clean energy projects aren’t allowed to go online because of tax incentives or interconnection or what have you, then there’s not a whole lot of other generation that’s scheduled to come on and fill that demand,” he said.

However, on the same day of the agreement, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a stipulated agreement filed by Georgia Power allowing the utility to increase its fossil fuel capacity and postpone the retirement of coal-burning power plants.

According to Vote Solar, Georgia Power profited more per customer in 2024 than any other large utility company in the country.

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