At town hall, Georgia Power customers ask for faster response to climate change

Aerial view of the Robert Scherer coal -fired power plant in Juliette, Georgia. (Wikimedia Commons)

State regulators will hold hearings soon on Georgia Power’s energy plans for the next two decades. Those plans will dictate how quickly Georgia’s largest utility moves away from fossil fuels, affecting the state’s contribution to climate change and with repercussions for the coal and solar industries.

Before those hearings get started, the commissioners decided to hold a town hall – a departure from past planning processes, where public comment was allowed at the beginning of the official proceedings.

The Thursday town hall was open to anyone with a comment or a question on anything the Georgia Public Service Commission regulates, including natural gas companies and landline telephones, but the vast majority of the people there wanted to talk about electricity.