Electricity in Georgia is sold by three very different kinds of utility, and which one serves your meter changes the economics of solar more than the brand of module on your roof ever will. What makes a commercial solar installation Georgia businesses can bank on is not the hardware. It is designing the array around the rate schedule, the interconnection rules and the incentive stack that actually apply at your service address.
OneWorld Solar is headquartered at 609 Church Street in Vidalia, in the middle of south Georgia's poultry and agriculture belt. The company was founded in 2001, which makes it the oldest solar company in the Southeast. Doug Baird acquired it in October 2017 and rebuilt it around large commercial and agricultural customers; since then we have installed more than 7.8 MW. Our largest single array — 1.267 MW of rooftop solar with 55,000 lb of battery storage at the Samsonite and TUMI distribution center — is in the same town as our office.
Who sells you power in Georgia, and why does it matter?
Three answers, three different projects.
Georgia Power is the investor-owned utility, regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission. Its commercial customers sit on published rate schedules, and the Commission approves those schedules, the interconnection tariff and the company's long-range resource plans in public dockets. That is genuinely useful to you: the rules are written down and you can read them. Customers on Georgia Power's commercial rate schedules typically pay a meaningful share of their bill as demand charges, so the design question is not only how much energy the array makes but when it makes it against your peak.
Electric Membership Corporations serve most of rural Georgia. There are dozens of them, they are member-owned cooperatives run by elected boards, and they buy most of their wholesale power through Oglethorpe Power. Each one sets its own interconnection policy, system size limits and buyback arrangement. Two poultry farms ten miles apart on different EMCs can get different answers to the same question. We read the specific co-op's current policy for every job rather than assuming.
Municipal utilities — cities that own their distribution system and buy wholesale power through the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia — are the third case. Their interconnection and buyback terms are set locally, and long-term wholesale supply contracts can shape how a city treats behind-the-meter generation. Verify current terms with the city before you sign anything.
Why we ask for twelve months of bills first
The rate schedule code printed on your bill tells us more than a satellite image of your roof does. Demand charges, ratchet clauses, power factor penalties and time-of-use windows decide whether solar alone, solar plus commercial battery storage, or power factor correction first is the right investment. On some Georgia tariffs, a smaller array plus storage beats a bigger array on its own.
Which incentives apply to commercial solar in Georgia?
The federal stack does the heavy lifting here. The 30% federal solar investment tax credit and Section 179 and bonus depreciation apply to Georgia businesses the same way they apply anywhere in the US, and for rural and agricultural sites the USDA REAP grant can cover a substantial share of project cost.
At the state level, Georgia has historically offered no broad statewide commercial solar tax credit comparable to the federal ITC, and utility-run rebate or program capacity is limited and periodically re-opened rather than permanently available. Treat any state or utility program as something to verify in writing this quarter, not something to assume. We will never model a savings number on an incentive we have not confirmed is open.
Why does south Georgia poultry come up so often?
Because the load profile fits. Broiler and breeder houses run tunnel ventilation, lighting and heating hard, year-round, on rural three-phase service — and they sit on land with clear southern exposure. They are also usually eligible rural small businesses or agricultural producers for REAP purposes. We have installed more than 4.8 MW on US poultry operations, including named systems at 210 kW on a six-house breeder farm, 450 kW on a 14-house broiler farm and 410 kW on a 16-house broiler farm. A commercial solar installation Georgia growers can finance usually comes down to how well the REAP application was put together, so we build that package as part of the job. If you run houses, start with solar panels for poultry farms.
What has OneWorld Solar actually built in Georgia?
1.267 MW
Samsonite / TUMI, Vidalia
Rooftop solar plus 55,000 lb of BatteryCube® storage using CATL cells.
1 MW+
Woody Folsom Automotive
Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler Dodge dealerships.
$1,800/mo
Swainsboro Supply Company
Power bill savings on a 117 kW ground mount.
Beyond those: 1.2 MW of ground mount across four Georgia Power facilities, the Swainsboro Supply 117 kW ground mount solar case study, 23 kW on the roof of the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Savannah, a 15 kW laminate canopy at the Southface Eco Office in Atlanta, 200 kW pole top at the Dr. Sidney Smith farm near Savannah, and 25 kW at Sweetwater Creek State Park. The Samsonite and TUMI 1.267 MW rooftop solar and battery case study is the one to read if you run a distribution center or plant; the Woody Folsom 1 MW dealership solar case study is the one to read if you sell cars.
Working for Georgia Power on its own facilities is worth a sentence on its own. Utilities are the hardest customers to satisfy on documentation, workmanship and interconnection compliance, and they do not hand that work to contractors who improvise.
Who does the engineering and permitting?
Chris Sandifer, our VP of Engineering, is a Professional Engineer licensed in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Texas, a NABCEP board-certified Photovoltaic System Inspector, and has worked on medium- and high-voltage interconnections of utility-scale renewable generators since 1992. Drawings are sealed in-house, so the engineer who stamped the set is the one who answers the utility's review comments — not a subcontractor three states away.
The rest of the scope is described on our commercial solar EPC contractor page: feasibility, engineering, procurement, construction, interconnection and commissioning under one contract. Related work in manufacturing and warehousing and at car dealerships follows the same process.
What is the next step?
We handle commercial solar installation Georgia wide — Atlanta metro to the coast, Georgia Power territory to the smallest EMC. Send twelve months of bills and the service address. We will identify the utility and rate schedule, tell you honestly whether your site is a good candidate, and put a number on it. For ranges before you talk to anyone, read how much commercial solar costs per kW in Georgia. Run your own first pass with the commercial solar savings calculator, or talk to our Vidalia office about a site walk.
