News 12 This Morning at 6 o'clock / Tuesday, February 8, 2011

AUGUSTA --- Augusta is one of seven cities where Georgia Power is testing solar panels to see how much electricity the sun can generate through the panels. They are scattered throughout Augusta, fitted on top of power lines.

The information from the study could determine one day if your house is powered by the sun. Some households are receiving electricity from those panels already in very small amounts. This 18 month study will look closer at how much electricity can be generated on a day to day basis.

Solar powered electricity could power many appliances in your house one day. Everything from your microwave to your light bulbs. "For right now our main goal is just to test it and to see what barriers and opportunities there are with putting solar panels on our poles," said Tim McGill, with Georgia Power.

Georgia Power teamed up with the Electric Power Research Institute to install these panels on seven different power poles in Augusta. "They're trying all different types of things for the future. Green energy, this would be one form of that, " said David Watwood an engineering supervisor at Georgia Power.

"Over the period there will be power produced and that's what we're trying to determine how much power can be produced," added McGill.

At it's max these panels can produce 200 watts of electricity, enough to power three 60 watt light bulbs in your house. However, on some days the sky is gray and sunlight is limited and the study will track what impact those factors have on producing energy.

"There is also cloud cover and other environmental factors," explained McGill. "So that's what we're testing. We want to see how those factors relate with the solar panels."

Watwood added, "They just have to determine whether in the state of Georgia this is feasible. It may work well in Augusta, but may not work well in Rome, Georgia.

Money also plays a factor in whether panels like this could provide us with power. "Technology is a big issue right now the cost of the solar panel has to get down to make it feasible," said McGill.

The study wraps up in the summer of 2012. Managers at Georgia Power say renewable energy is something they're focusing on heavily. They're looking at solar rooftops, solar farms, and wind farms for alternative ways to generate electricity.

If they yield good results with this initial study, they'll look closer at the economic side of things, and study how much it'll cost them to do this on a larger scale. Right now each panel cost $5,000. They're hoping as the technology becomes more popular some of those costs will come down.