January 16, 2025

When the power goes out during a storm, there’s a team with a Georgia Southern University student at the Georgia Transmission Corporation (GTC) responsible for looking into what happened. Elizabeth Sills, a computer and electrical engineering senior from Savannah works in the system reliability department for the GTC.engin

“If there’s an outage and they don’t know what caused it, I’ll run a lightning study to see if there’s lightning in the area,” said Sills. “Then, for example, I’ll send out an email saying it was a negative five kilovolt bolt. That way when the field guys go out, they know what to expect.”

Sills hasn’t just been working on the reliability of current power grids, but is also working to bolster the reliability of future power sources. During the previous semester, she had been intrigued by the possibility of contributing to solar energy advancements. As part of an electric engineering course, she tested the strength and longevity of solar panels in various climates and other elements. 

Sills noted climate conditions can also impact how much technology can be added onto a solar panel to increase efficiencies or margins of error.

“There are different types of solar panels,” she said. “Some of them can rotate. So if the sun’s coming up, the panel will face the sun and then it will rotate with it. Some can also swivel, and there are some that can bend 90 degrees. If you get the whole range of motion, it’s more likely that more parts will fail.”

Her findings revealed that panels kept in temperatures between 30°F and 86°F significantly extended the lifespan of the solar panels. This information is critical for the expansion of their use across the globe. 

Her work has even garnered international attention.

Sills was invited to be part of a small research team going to Denmark over the next summer to continue her research into solar panels and their utilization. Her research team is made up of five other students from across the U.S. and is supported through funding from the National Science Foundation.

“Most of the research in this area is now over in Europe,” she said. “They have different transformer models and a whole different grid over there. We want to see if we can bring it to America and still be able to use the same functions.”

This isn’t her first accolade in this field of study.

More recently, Sills brought a statewide award back to Eagle Nation. Last fall, she participated in the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference, hosted by Oxford College of Emory University. Out of 80 competitors from across Georgia, her research on power converters in solar panels won the “Outstanding Poster” award. Sills’ award-winning research revealed new possibilities that can assist with the reliability of power electronic converters, ensuring solar panels function efficiently under temperature and stress. 

“I was excited,” Sills said. “It was my first ever competition for research posters or anything of  that nature so I didn’t know what to expect. It was very surprising.” 

ATLANTA — The Georgia Ethics Commission voted unanimously on Wednesday to fine two advocacy groups that were founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams and led by Raphael Warnock before voters elected him to the U.S. Senate.

The commission found that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated New Georgia Project Action Fund illegally did election work for Abrams and others without disclosing their campaign contributions and spending.

The groups’ current leadership admitted 16 instances of illegal activity in a consent decree and will pay a $300,000 fine, the largest in state history according to the commission’s director, David Emadi.

The commission found that the entities raised $4.2 million and spent $3.2 million to support Abrams and other candidates in the 2018 election cycle.

David Fox, a lawyer for the New Georgia Project and the action fund, said his clients “understand and respect the commission’s positions on the facts and the law.

“The matter relates to events from more than five years ago, and respondents are eager to put the matter behind them,” Fox told commissioners by video.

Where ethics officials ruled the groups went wrong was failing to register as an independent campaign committee before taking contributions for electioneering, and failing to file campaign finance reports of contributions and spending before Abrams narrowly lost the governor’s race to Republican Brian Kemp that year.

The groups repeated the same illegal activity in 2019 when they campaigned to extend public transportation in suburban Gwinnett County, failing to disclose $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending for a voter referendum to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. The referendum lost.

Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 to register more nonwhite and young voters in Georgia and to urge them to turn out. The project is a charity that can accept tax-deductible donations. The New Georgia Project Action Fund is a nonprofit social welfare organization that can directly endorse candidates, although donations aren’t tax deductible. Neither group normally has to disclose donors. Emadi said the groups are likely to now file campaign finance disclosures for the period in question.

Abrams stepped down in 2017 and said she had no role with the groups thereafter. Warnock, a close Abrams ally and Baptist minister, was listed as the New Georgia Project’s CEO on corporate filings in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

“I’m not prepared to say he had direct involvement in this,” Emadi said. “I didn’t personally find evidence of that.”

Michael Brewer, a spokesperson for Warnock’s Senate office, said Warnock was working “as a longtime champion for voting rights” and didn’t know anything about violations. “Compliance decisions were not a part of that work,” Brewer wrote in an email.

The complaint was filed in 2019 and survived multiple court challenges, accessing emails in an effort to prove the groups improperly coordinated with Abrams’ 2018 campaign. Wednesday’s consent decree contains no such findings, but Emadi said a separate complaint alleging illegal coordination remains under investigation.

Lawyers for the New Georgia Project previously argued that the groups acted like other nonprofits and that Republicans including Emadi, who had donated to Kemp, were using their majority on the commission in a partisan witch hunt to damage Abrams’ political viability.

Abrams lost the 2022 governor’s race to Kemp by a much larger margin than in 2018, but the ethics case was little discussed.

The commission fined another group, Gente4Abrams, $50,000 in 2020 for failing to register and file reports on $240,000 it spent to help Abrams in the 2018 Democratic primary, the commission found. The group registered after the commission ruling, reporting it spent an additional $685,000 for Abrams in the 2018 general election.

Ethics Commissioner Rick Thompson, who was formerly the commission’s top employee, lauded commission staff and said he wished criminal penalties and not just civil ones were available under state law.

“I think actions like this should be criminal because of the significant impact secret money can have on elections,” Thompson said. “Organizations attempting to keep their election spending secret is shameful and does a disservice to our elections and voters.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday he wants to let low-income parents with young kids enroll without working in a Medicaid program that provides coverage for some able-bodied adults.

Kemp’s announcement came as President-elect Donald Trump returns to office and more state and federal officials consider Medicaid work requirements.

Georgia is the only state that requires some people to work, study or volunteer to enroll in Medicaid, under the program Georgia Pathways. If the incoming Trump administration approves Kemp’s plan, parents and guardians of kids up to age 6 in households at or below 100% of the federal poverty level could receive Medicaid without meeting those requirements.

“In a growing state that needs more Georgians in the workforce than ever before, providing health insurance to a family or individual with young children may be the last piece they need to restart a career and be on the path for a brighter future,” Kemp said.

Most states cover adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level with primarily federal funds. Kemp has championed Georgia Pathways as an alternative to expanding Medicaid for low-income adults. Enrollees have to complete 80 hours of work, volunteer activity, schooling or vocational rehabilitation a month to receive coverage. Kemp says the goal is to ease them into a job that provides private insurance.

Georgia Pathways had a rough start. After its first year, the program had around 4,300 members, a sliver of those who are eligible. Health policy experts have called the program a “failure,” saying the requirements are too burdensome a large number of struggling people.

Opponents also say the program has wasted money. Nonprofit health policy research organization KFF reports the program has costed more than $40 million in state and federal tax dollars that have been spent mostly on administrative costs rather than medical care. Others complain about sign-up complications and the program’s slow processing times.

In a written statement, state Senate Democrats called the new plan “damage control” for the Georgia Pathways program.

“There are over half a million Georgians who need health insurance, and the governor’s proposal falls well short of that, and we’re leaving federal dollars on the table that would help close the coverage gap in Georgia,” said Democratic state Sen. Jason Esteves, of Atlanta. “Because of the governor’s plan, we will continue to struggle to strengthen our healthcare system.”

Kemp has regularly doubled down on his commitment to Georgia Pathways.

“The old system is not working,” Kemp said Wednesday. “And the other side, their only answer to any of this is they want government-run healthcare. And I am not in that boat.”

The Trump administration approved Medicaid work requirement plans in 13 states, but the Biden administration revoked these waivers in 2021. Georgia Pathways survived after a legal fight.

Kemp will have to get approval for his plans from the Trump administration, as the program is set to expire in September. Talks are already underway, Kemp said, calling the incoming administration a “federal partner that wants to innovate efficiently.”

He said the Biden administration has meanwhile “unfortunately been more interested in finding ways to stop or undermine our efforts rather than working with us.”

Kemp spokesperson Garrison Douglas said the governor’s new plan would cost an additional $207,000. In an effort to boost enrollment, the state recently invested $10.7 million to raise awareness about Georgia Pathways.

Democratic senators, including Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, recently called for a federal investigation into Georgia Pathways.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.