The Plan

Our Future Energy Needs

Our Plan

Our Future Energy Needs

• The need for additional power generation among Georgia Electric Membership Cooperatives (EMCs) is widespread and immediate. Georgia’s EMCs – which currently serve over 1.8 million members, representing about four million citizens in service areas that cover 73 percent of the state – are growing at an average of four percent a year.
• The ten EMCs involved in this project currently serve almost 700,000 residential and business members and are growing at a rate of five percent a year.
• Although Oglethorpe Power Corporation (OPC) provides baseload generation for many EMCs, most also buy some of their power from wholesalers to ensure reliable and affordable power to meet demand.
• By 2013, many of these wholesale power contracts will expire. When combined with our forecasted growth, wholesalers are expected to charge substantially higher prices for any contracts that are renewed. Most contracts will not be renewed because some contracts have already been sold to other companies and renewal terms on the others are unfavorable for members of the respective EMCs. Therefore, the EMCs are seeking ways to develop reliable sources of power at affordable prices.
• Because of the contract roll-offs and forecasted growth, the 10 co-ops involved in this project will need more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new base load power generation by 2016 (base load power is the constant, steady supply of electricity we all rely upon throughout the day).
• Within the next five years, there simply will not be enough generating capacity or wholesale power available to allow co-ops to continue providing affordable and reliable electricity to its residential and business members.

Our Plan for Meeting Future Energy Needs

• Ten of these EMCs have come together to develop a comprehensive energy plan, entitled "Power4Georgians."
• The successful implementation of the Power4Georgians plan will help the EMCs provide stable, long-term supply of affordable, reliable and dependable energy to its members and future growth.
• The plan contains multiple strategies aimed at managing energy usage as well as exploring and adding new energy supplies.
• The plan calls for meeting its growing power needs four ways:
  1. Energy efficiency
  2. Renewable energy
  3. Existing generating resources
  4. New generation resources