Oglethorpe Power Corporation is a medium-sized

electric utility An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major pr ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Formed in 1974, Oglethorpe is a not-for-profit

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

owned by the 38 electric membership corporations that it serves. The utility's headquarters are in

Tucker, Georgia Tucker is a city located in DeKalb County, Georgia, United States, located near Atlanta and was originally settled in the 1820s, and later developed as a railroad community in 1892. According to the 2016 United States Census Bureau annual estimate ...

History

In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) provided loans for building transmission lines in rural areas, and EMCs were created in Georgia to purchase power from various sources. In 1974, 39 Georgia-based EMCs incorporated Oglethorpe Power Corporation to invest in generating capacities and transmission lines. In 1996, Oglethorpe Power signed a 15-year, $4-5 billion deal with LG&E to receive half of its electricity needs from the Kentucky-based power supplier, with a locked down price on the coal-fired megawatt that LG&E must maintain. In 1997, Ogelthorpe restructured into three separate, but interrelated, cooperatives. Oglethorpe Power Corporation handles

electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery ( transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its s ...

, Georgia Transmission Corporation owns and operates the transmission lines and substations and Georgia System Operations Corporation provides system and administrative support. In September 2008, Oglethorpe Power announced the construction of a massive woody biomass power plant (two 100-megawatt-per-year, carbon-neutral facilities) to power nearly half of Georgia's population. In 2017, the turmoil surrounding the failed deliveries of nuclear reactors by bankrupted Westinghouse put Oglethorpe Power at the forefront of the country's nuclear crisis.

Activity

Oglethorpe Power is the largest power supply cooperative in the

based upon assets and annual kilowatt-hour sales. The utility's service area covers 65 percent of the state of Georgia. Ogelthorpe co-owns several of its plants with Georgia Power (largest electricity supplier in the state) and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia. Oglethorpe's power plants has an annual revenue of $1 billion and assets of over $7 billion, and 4.1 million customers (2011). About 24% of the capacity is

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, 47%

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

, 19%

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

and 10% hydroelectric power (2009). Oglethorpe Power owns 817 megawatts of the 1,095-megawatt Rocky Mountain Hydroelectric Plant, a pure

pumped-storage hydroelectric Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH), or pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES), is a type of hydroelectric energy storage used by electric power systems for load balancing. The method stores energy in the form of gravitational potential ...

plant that stores

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

during periods of low

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...

demand and produces electricity during periods of high demand. The utility's nuclear power comes from its partial ownership of the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Generating Station and the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. It has partial ownership of two coal plants and full ownership of 3 combined cycle power plants and several

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

power plants. Oglethorpe is a 30% partner in the project to build two new

AP1000 The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company. The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety and many design features intended to lower its capital cost and impr ...

nuclear reactors at Vogtle, and has $3 billion of

Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...

loan guarantees for the project. In 2018 it sought more loan guarantees to cover cost overruns on the project. Lead partner Georgia Power agreed to pay an additional proportion of any project completion costs beyond $9.2 billion.

Governance

There is a Board of Directors that has directors and managers from EMCs (Electric Membership Cooperative) and an independent director. There is also the Leadership, which has a President, a Vice President, Senior Vice Presidents, and Executive Vice Presidents.

Leadership

Board of directors

{, class="wikitable" , - , Marshall S. Millwood{{cite web , title=Board of Directors - About Our Company , url=https://opc.com/about/our-company/ , website=Oglethorpe Power , access-date=27 September 2022 , , Chairman,

Sawnee EMC Sawnee EMC (SEMC; founded as Forsyth County EMC) is an electrical generation and transmission cooperative founded in July 1938 and based in Cumming, Georgia. , Sawnee EMC is the third-largest electric co-op in Georgia and the eighth-largest in th ...

, - , James I. White , , Vice Chairman, Snapping Shoals EMC , - , George L. Weaver , , Central Georgia EMC , - , Randy Crenshaw , , Irwin EMC, Middle Georgia EMC , - , Fred A. McWhorter , , Rayle EMC , - , Ernest A. “Chip” Jakins III , , Jackson EMC , - , Jeffrey W. Murphy , , Hart EMC , - , Sam Simonton , , Walton EMC , - , Danny Nichols , , Colquitt EMC , - , Horace H. Weathersby III, , Planters EMC , - , Jimmy G. Bailey , , Diverse Power , - , Wm. Ronald Duffey , , Outside Director

References

Energy Information Administration

External links

Oglethorpe Power Corporation
* Electric generation and transmission cooperatives in the United States Companies based in Tucker, Georgia Energy companies established in 1974 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1974 Energy in Georgia (U.S. state)