State energy regulators Tuesday approved a plan by Georgia Power to buy about 80 megawatts of electricity generated by burning wood chips at a cost opponents said far outweighs the project’s value to the forestry industry.

The Georgia Public Service Commission voted 4-1 to approve the proposal. The lone “no” vote came from Commissioner Tricia Pridemore, who raised concerns about the plan’s cost during a hearing last week.

Most of the power – 70 megawatts – will come through a 30-year power-purchasing agreement (PPA) with Altamaha Green Energy LLC, which will build a mill in Wayne County to produce the biomass. Two other 10-year PPAs with International Paper Co. will generate the rest of the biomass from existing mills in Port Wentworth and Macon County.

The project’s supporters say the biomass projects will give a needed boost to a forestry industry in rural South Georgia that needs new markets for an oversupply of wood that has driven down prices. Georgia Power’s plan was endorsed by the Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Agribusiness Council, and the Georgia Forestry Association.

But environmental and consumer advocates say burning wood to produce electricity releases more climate-warming pollution than burning coal. They also warned the new Altamaha Green Energy biomass plant will cost more than three times its economic value to Georgia Power ratepayers.

“It is unconscionable that commissioners would demand Georgia Power customers to subsidize a dirty, expensive industry when too many of them are struggling to pay rising energy bills,” said Codi Norred, executive director of the nonprofit environmental organization Georgia Interfaith Power and Light. “It’s clear the commission has no intention of protecting customers.”

Aradhana Chandra, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represented Georgia Interfaith Power and Light in the case, argued last week that biomass also is less reliable than other sources of power generation. She said nearly 90% of Georgia Power’s biomass portfolio was unavailable during the peak of Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022.

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