The Georgia Public Service Commission voted unanimously for an unprecedented expansion of the ability of the state’s largest electrical utility to generate and sell power to keep up with the onrush of the data center industry into the state, whether the need turns out to be as projected by Georgia Power.
Protesters blasted the 5-0 decision, erupting into chants of ”The people say nay!” at the moment PSC chair Jason Shaw called for the vote.
Georgia Power won permission from the PSC for just under 10GW of new generation capacity (about 70% of its current capacity), which, according to modeling it calls trade secrets, it says it needs to fuel and lure new data centers in the state.
At one point in the months of hearings for evaluating the request, professional staff for the PSC said in their analysis the projections didn’t hold up. Staff said only about a third of the increase was warranted by already closed contracts, and that data center revenue shortfalls by 2030 could leave the utility looking to pay over $3 billion annually for new generation assets it does not need.
A study by Greenlink Analytics and Science for Georgia, which used public information in the same type of reiterative modeling Georgia Power plugged its trade secret deals into for its projections, came to a similar conclusion as PSC staff: out of hundreds of thousands of so called Monte Carlo simulations, Georgia Power’s projections only materialized one out of 500 times, or .22% of the time.
The pivot around which the decision in Georgia Power’s favor turned was what some environmental advocates characterized as an eleventh-hour deal struck between Georgia Power and the PSC staff around the revenue projection logjam.
In the stipulated agreement, Georgia Power agreed to apply a piece of the revenue from the data center business it expects from the newly granted power generation to household electrical bills. The agreement means beginning three years from now, you might see your power bill cut by $100 a year.
If the new revenue doesn’t materialize (if the data center trend is a bubble that bursts), Georgia Power agreed to still apply the downward pressure on garden-variety power bills, to the detriment of its shareholders. The deal to cut bills with data center revenue would only run through 2031.
Throughout the final hearing, many opponents were skeptical that the promise would be enough to counteract other forces acting to increase power bills over time.
Ahead of the vote, Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Jennifer Whitfield argued to the PSC that the math underlying those promises—the projections of future revenue—should be moved from “trade secret” status and be made public or at least entered into the official record of the PSC docket.
“We are clear-eyed, and we are concerned, and we believe that the public deserves accountability around that financial promise,” Whitfield said.
How else, she asked, could the agreement be enforced in the future?
The motion was denied.
PSC Commissioners Bubba McDonald and Tricia Pridemore countered that the time to deal with those revenue projections is in 2028, the next year Georgia Power will come before the commission to set its billing rate.
Georgia Power’s attorney Brandon Marzo defended the secret projections, saying 3 GW of new large load customer contracts had been finalized just in the time the PSC has been scrutinizing the utility’s request.
The bulk of the newly approved generation—about 6 gigawatts or three Hoover Dams—is planned to come via new methane gas turbines. Those turbines emit climate-warming carbon dioxide, but less than the coal-fired power plants Georgia Power is keeping up and running through at least 2030.
After the vote, Maggie Shober of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy condemned the deal and its promise of even more carbon emissions. Shober said she wasn’t aware of another expansion of generation capacity and carbon footprint by a utility of this size anywhere else in the country.
“It’s not just the amount, it’s locking people into carbon emissions until 2075,” she said. “I have small kids. My youngest is two years old. He will be older than me by that point.”
Shober said her organization has not ruled out challenging the decision in court.
Thirty people signed up for public comment ahead of the vote, including Susanne Reynolds, director of the Development Authority of South Georgia’s Early County, who reminded the PSC her community lost over 500 jobs this year when a paper plant closed. She said she looks to the expansion of data centers as an opportunity for her community.
“The decisions made here today will ripple far outside these walls,” Reynolds said. “They will influence whether or not rural communities like mine can fully participate in Georgia's economic success, or if we're going to have to watch them pass us by.”
Julie Jabaley was one of the people escorted out of an earlier hearing for violating meeting decorum when they vocally objected to the deal struck between Georgia Power and PSC staff.
“If you vote on this proposal today, as is, you demonstrate and utter lack of respect for thousands of petitioners who have tried to decorously convince you that there's a better way to fulfill your mission,” Jabaley told commissioners from the public lectern.
Two Republican members of the PSC were voted out of office and replaced by Democrats in November, just weeks ahead of the PSC vote on Georgia Power’s request. The final vote came just days before the new members are scheduled to be seated on the commission.
Ahead of his last vote on the PSC, Tim Echols, one of the Republicans leaving the commission, said he wished he’d been able to vote on a slate of nuclear power plants instead of gas-powered turbines. He still voted “yes”.
