Electricity: Carbon Drawdown Potential in Georgia

You can view our PowerPoint outlining our electricity solutions in the link attached here

OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS: GHG emissions from the generation and consumption of electricity in Georgia have significantly declined 

Greenhouse gases emitted from electric power plants have declined significantly – by 15.4% between 2017 and 2021, due primarily to a reduction in the carbon intensity of the electricity generated in Georgia. This decarbonization of power generation was primarily driven by the retirement of coal plants, increased reliance on natural gas, and the growth of solar farms. The residential sector has the largest demand for electricity, followed by commercial buildings and industry. Commercial buildings are powered mostly by electricity, and they have seen the largest decline in GHG emissions since 2017.

Solar energy only provided 2% of Georgia’s in-state electricity in 2019. Georgia has the 10^th highest solar potential in the U.S.

Georgia’s large-scale solar capacity has the potential to more than double to 5.4 GW by 2030

Carbon Drawdown Potential: 1 Megaton of reduction =10 additional 100 MW solar farms and 36 additional 5 MW community solar systems. 9 Megatons of reduction are achievable in Georgia by 2030.

At the end of Quarter 3, 2019, Georgia had 1,202 MW of installed solar on rooftops

Carbon Drawdown Potential:2,580 GWh of zero-carbon electricity generated by 295,000 5-kW solar rooftops, would reduce 1.0 MT of CO2 by 2030.

16 additional 25 MW cogen plants using waste heat to generate electricity

In 2017, Georgia had 43 cogeneration facilities totaling 1.4 GW of capacity. Because of Georgia’s amount of heavy industry, there are ample opportunities for cogeneration.

Demand Response can save Georgians approximately $244 million on their electricity cost over the next decade.

Carbon Drawdown Potential: 1 Megaton of reduction =187,000 households participate in a demand-response program, reducing 10% of their peak demand. X Megatons of reduction are achievable in Georgia by 2030.

Landfills are a major source of methane emissions. This GHG can be captured and used to generate electricity which can prevent emissions and replace conventional electricity-generating technologies such as coal.

In 2019, Georgia had 92 landfills totaling more than 495Mt of methane-producing waste.

Carbon Drawdown Potential: 4 typical landfill facilities with 5 MW gas-to-energy systems